This is called "Twinned."
As I'm sure most of you know, the female bees of the hive
make up 90% of the hive.
This will be a short lecture on apiary culture.
And the worker bees do all the work.
The females do all the work in the hive.
And there's about 5% that are males
that are the drones that basically just eat the honey
and have one job--
besides eating honey.
The females, the workers, genetically are identical.
It's like they're just clones of each other.
They're all the same.
If you get one, you know exactly where it came from.
What hive it came from.
I said that once to a group of scientists
and they pointed out that actually, that
wasn't exactly true, but I've been saying it for so long
that I can't stop saying it.
There's probably somebody here that knows this also,
but it's impossible for them to be genetically identical
because then they would die out for some reason.
But they're very close to being genetically
identical, like 9/10 genetically identical or more, even more.
So I called this poem, "Twinned,"
as if they are identical.
"Twinned."
"To exist wholly in another, seamless, mirrored.
Think of the hive.
At each turn, we find ourselves not a version, not a replica,
but our whole selves.
Love, you claim, comes close to this.
No space between your words.
A hand over the other's heart.
How do you live with this distance?
I have you, she thinks, or I know you.
But she can never say I am you."