18 September 2008 | Vol. 8, No. 3

Craniopagus Parasiticus

by JEN BARTMAN

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic – An infant girl born with a second head bled to death Saturday after complex surgery to remove her partially formed twin.
– Peter Prengaman, Associated Press

In their shared lagoon, the unfinished twin's head

               twisted against the head of the whole twin,

as if her mouth might reach her sister's,

               and there might be oxygen to spare.

Perhaps the umbilical cord is to blame.

               Blood flowed through the one vessel only. If somehow

that root had managed to branch, to nourish both of them,

               but the unformed twin had no belly to receive it. She bloomed

from her sister's head like a mushroom. Parasite

               they called her, and when doctors tried to slice her off

with a knife, she held fast to the life of her sister.

               This was not a failure or an error, the doctor said.

When we left her last night at midnight, the girl

               was in stable condition. At some point in the night

she started to bleed. But if she hadn't become unstable—

               if she had survived the separation,

how often would she have touched the bald scar

               within her nest of hair? How could her bedroom

ever hold enough tapeworms      enough fungi and wood rose

               and toothwort      enough leeches and barnacles and fleas?