Ben Gunsberg
A response to Mark Klett
TWIN DAYS
“Largest Annual Gathering of Twins in the World”
—Guinness Book of World Records
There and they’re—a pigtailed pair
who share the same vulnerability
to glaucoma. Two more match
tie-dyed shirts, Kruse Brothers
Car Club hats. Duplicate nails,
diapers, flip-flops—thousands
converge in Twinsberg, Ohio
every August. In Twinsberg, Ohio,
the FBI scan irises, freckles,
overbite, even advanced facial
recognition software fooled
by small changes in lighting.
Scientists, too, pitch white tents,
ask Rob and Ron to sip juice
from tiny cups. How’s it taste?
How’s it taste? Thanks to twins,
they calculate height at 80%
heritable, IQ at 75%. Perhaps
too alike, too like eugenics—
eugenical, I think. Reading now
about two couples raising identicals
200 miles apart. Mothers say both
took first steps March 8, same
lazy eye, same mean streak.
Responses to Mark Klett's Work
Ben Gunsberg
Ben Gunsberg is an Assistant Professor of English at Utah State University. His poetry appears in Cutbank, The Southeast Review, and The South Carolina Review, among other magazines. He is the author of the chapbook Rhapsodies with Portraits (Finishing Line Press, 2015). His Poetry manuscript, Cut Time, won the University of Michigan's Hopwood Award for Poetry Writing. He lives in Logan, Utah, at the foot of the Bear River Mountains and online at www.bengunsberg.com.