Multiple Man: Guest-starring me & you
by Gary Jackson

Every night I sleep on alternate

sides of the bed, as if to duplicate
sleeping with you. If

I’m fast enough, I’m the warmth
of my own body beside me, reach

out and touch myself. Breach
the blue of my bones, breathe in my own ear.

You left me. Lying here,
I left you to be with me.

Someone asks if your body
was worth trading for mine.

My sin was always pride.
Did you want a man that sleeps

with himself to keep
the bed warm? I need you like the earth

needed the flood after dearth.

About This Poem
“That first night you’re back to sleeping alone again, expecting another body beside you, and the physical absence is so jarring that you think what if I could become the body I miss? Multiple Man could do it, but I can’t. And of course he’s a mutant superhero, because I can’t help myself.” — Gary Jackson

About Gary Jackson
Gary Jackson is the author of Missing You, Metropolis (Graywolf Press, 2010). He teaches at Central New Mexico Community College and Murray State University, and lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.