Two shadow heartbeats
on a grey and white screen
thumped in synchrony with each other
and with my own heart,
a trifecta of burgeoning life
within me.

Sprouting growing limbs,
organs, fingers, and toes
from tiny tadpole bodies,
they danced and squirmed round each other,
my identical, beautiful girls.

Two shadow heartbeats
one day on that screen
de-synchronized, one gone.
Two girl bodies remained,
swayed in the reflected rhythm,
but one unformed soul had fled,
one living girl growing within me
one girl dead.

Weeks later I birthed them both,
identical still to the end,
one live child to rejoice in the light,
one child a shadow forever more.