For My Twin

When the peacock scratched your face, I was thrilled, for a moment, to see the blood roll down your nose in the crooked trails left by its toes. But when I touched my own face—nose intact—I panicked. Your face was a mess! In one stroke, we had lost six years of symmetry. Later, I wasn’t allowed to come to the hospital with you; I was sent home to eat chicken rice for dinner. It tasted like flowers but I chewed it like an automaton and swallowed it anyway. I think you would have tasted the flower taste too.