Woe

Plants. Neurobiology journals spilling over coffee tables. Work tables. Beakers with odd contents. One large black & white poster of an austere looking man. Photos of twins and triplets, children and adults, old people. Rotten tangerines in a bowl. I tell him I was an identical twin. The other was lost in utero, I add, as I try to clear a space for him. He watches my hands, the left one curled permanently as if holding a baseball. I was born this way, I tell him. (But this is too much woe, too soon. I should shut the fuck up.) He opens the drawer where I keep the corkscrew. You're okay, he says. It’s as if we have been here before. In this room. With this winsome cat. He says, all this science I don’t understand. But I feel our future unfurling before us. I know exactly how the air will feel on the patio. I remember rain on a clear night. I know the sound the back door will make, the squeak of its hinges, when he finally leaves me.