The Twins

Benjamin Niespodziany

Runner up for the 2021 Greg Grummer Poetry Contest

The twins live in an old house with a stick that speaks three tongues. Atop the stick there sits a shifting egg. It rots and it ripens, it ripens and rots. Once the egg is ready, the twins fight for a bite, but their fight lasts too long, always too long, and the rot begins to rotten. This repeats forever. Their hunger is endless. The house is modest. Every year is the same. One day Witch comes and takes the shifting egg. She leaves behind the stick and returns back up her hill. The stick does not stop crying. The twins make their own egg out of velvet, rats and glass. Stamps and lace. They paint it gold with snow, hold it in their mouths until the clouds astound the teeth. The shame it is less. The hunger the same.

Benjamin Niespodziany

is a Pushcart Prize nominee and Best Microfiction nominee. He has had work appear in Fence, Fairy Tale Review, Hobart, Maudlin House, Wigleaf, and various others. A returned Peace Corps volunteer, he now works nights in a library in Chicago and runs the multimedia art blog [neonpajamas].

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