Half Brother

You’re half-hitched to the tree,
half-hearted in the hide and hide
of hunt the family. The most I’ve seen:
a white shawl, cradled like a crescent moon,
lit by the minim of your mother’s face,
and our father, smiling.

All through that semitone grey light
of growing up an only,
I didn’t know. I learned half lives
go on for always, that half empty
is called half full, and half a loaf
is, for some reason, better.

Perhaps you’re good with numbers
imaginary and real; perhaps you understand
the uncertainty principle I can name
but never figure out. Fractions are easier:
half is always one of two
equal parts.

Except for half truths,
always moving, midway between ebb
and flow, impossible to measure
accurately at any one point in time.