Stunt-doubles, understudies, twins, and mirrors —
A waiting room of commonplaces — no stage fright here
Among exquisite weighings of lessers, superiors;
Calibration is comfort impervious to fear.
And what does it matter if lives repeat?
Off-on naught-one equals the complete true
Body coming down the hall to meet you,
And you are going now to meet;
Except when it isn’t and you aren’t;
Dubbing and duplicates wander apart
In errant casts ill-fitted to vision;
The church of soul mates has fallen into schism,
Searching for synchrony that’s present and isn’t.
The third doppelganger’s the root of minus one:
Imaginary, manipulable, encrypted,
Who must be employed, nothing else can be done,
Or Lazarus never rises from the scripted.