Early in the Twentieth

This happened : twins, conjoined at the pelvis, legless, their body formed a V. In the post-delivery photograph: smeared from being born, foreheads touching, eyes clenched shut until they’re merely seams. Each half screams. Each mouth open: mere inches apart, wide as they might go. Cyclical: scream of one girl, the breath, the painful noise, the noisy pain, each screaming into each, re-entering the sister. No extant record for survival, no certificate of names, nothing but a snapshot, an anecdote. They were the prompt of a prayer for an end to come quickly, for god to fix what he miswrought.