The One Who Got the Other Half

I was looking for the lease. The shoebox

was in the way so I lifted it and a photo

slid out and I held it under the lamp

and for three seconds

didn't know who it was.

Twelve years old, roughly. The photo

overexposed, the face half-turned,

mid-word—whatever I was saying

cut off by the shutter. Some wall

behind me I have no memory of.

Not the house I grew up in. Not anywhere

I can place. I kept looking at it

for maybe ten minutes, trying to find

the room. The face I knew eventually,

obviously. But those three seconds

sat somewhere in me different.

That kid was in the middle of saying something.

They looked like they had just figured out

what to say, or were about to.

The wall behind them ordinary, painted,

leading nowhere I can name.

I found the lease under a water bill.

Put the photo back. Went to bed thinking

about the wall. What was on the other side of it.

What that kid was saying when the shutter closed.