T H E D O PPE LGÄ N G E R’ S M U LT I PLE E X POS U RE
The Doppelgänger dipped his moist hands into the once-washed poems. Then, faithfully, he unwashed, unclasped, and unthought the following: Jesus is no Pittsburgh. The swink of it made him queasy and unable to enunciate. He tried standing monolithically still like a slurry-gray steel mill abandoned along the shores of the Monongahela. He failed. Whatever minor understandings he smuggled into his twenties became pesos to place over the eyes of road kill. His heart idled at the drive-through. He ordered less than he desired. Even the words mattered less to him now than the vibrations he teased from his lover’s throat. Once upon at time, it was all terminal: the marshgrass and the yarnbirds and the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. He stood there, shirtless—a camera at arm’s length, snapping himself in half.