We were twins.
Dandelion-and-burdock, lemonade, even medicines
would be measured glass against glass.
To each his equal share.
Anything else would have been ‘not fair’.
With sweets it was “One for you, one for me,”
no need for a referee,
and in our shared double bed
encroachments were rare.
“You’re on my side” would have been ‘not fair’.
As children identically dressed,
then, once we’d flown the nest,
out there, in our wide Air Force blue yonder,
brothers-in-arms in the same bright-buttoned uniform,
again we would conform.
But Death didn’t know the rules.
Intruding into our lives one dark autumnal afternoon
he took you away on a motorbike.
We were only eighteen.
He came too soon.
And he had no sense of propriety.
It should have been me.
I was the first-born, fifteen minutes older than you,
I’d taken more than my due.
I am now sixty-nine
and with fifty-one years (and fifteen minutes)
longer than you already,
the gulf of ‘not fairness’ widens year on year,
as does a strange sense of self-reproach:
the irrational guilt of the survivor.
But I am an infidel
(what else would I be?)
so I can’t believe that when my time comes
I’ll find you waiting with
“It’s not fair, you had more than me!”