The Other Fraction

The thumbnail photo is grainy and bright.

He’s holding a cake with a 'thirty' in wax.

He has the same jawline, the same lack of height,

and the way that his shoulders will never relax.

We share a few inches of double-helix strand,

a man in a raincoat who didn't stay long.

I’m looking at a brother I don't understand,

a verse that was cut from a familiar song.

He smiles at a camera I’ll never see,

in a kitchen that smells like a house I don't know.

It’s a strange kind of ghost, this partial of me,

standing in light while I sit in the shadow.