Contact Sheet, by Sarah Nichols

Contact Sheet, Identical Twins, by Diane Arbus (USA), 1967.

Contact Sheet
After Contact Sheet #4539 of three different sets of identical twins, by Diane Arbus

In our secret language,
we float upside down.


It’s like speaking to a mirror. Or
an x-ray. Those shrouded outlines

presenting us with maps.

Here is your tongue, sister. Let
me share it.

Here is my hand. You take it
into 
yourself, a 

piece left over
from the time before

when we slept in
the aperture of our
mother’s body.

Here are our eyes. Pinholes
or
cataracts. 

Equally blind.

Sarah Nichols

Sarah Nichols is a co-editor of Thank You for Swallowing, an online journal of feminist protest poetry. She is  the author of three chapbooks, including She May Be a Saint (Hermeneutic Chaos Press, 2016), and Edie (Whispering): Poems from Grey Gardens (Dancing Girl Press, 2015). Her work has also appeared in Yellow Chair Review, Rogue Agent, and Noble/Gas Qtrly.