Half Life
        One cannot get around the assumption of reality, if only one is honest.
                                —Albert Einstein

My father walks-out somewhere in this world he weaves in and out of my
dreams halting reels from a silent movie. I am a proof, a projector. I am his
negative, his ghost. contact transfer. silver halide. a mirror, backward. splitting
image. revolving door, like celluloid. like grain. like light, but mold. like long
division. but rot. leak, but decay. heat. fade. bleach. fire. like forest burnt warm—

But soft, softer still. twilight. until haze. until downy fuzz, until windowsill.
until dust, until sunbeam. because entropy. because eyes.

Because thermodynamics. because music. because weed. because wool. because
waves, also particles. because scarce. because Schrodinger. because The Lion King.

Because I don't know how to love them better.
Their cigarettes and pea coats.
I have been halved and halved and had.

But I got this far, Dad; on half an origin story
Half made-up biology. Half, playing house

daddy soft palate.
daddy underbelly pierced, pitched
daddy leaden, I carry you beneath my tongue
have not yet made up my mind

Anything is probable, until you flip the house lights
define it otherwise. Ask the cat.

He decays at an exponential rate.
My father: halved and halved and halved
He knows—

Please don't ruin the surprise. No peeking.
Somewhere unobservable; Here, and long gone,

My father is alive.
My father is dead. My father
is alive. My father is dead.

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Copyright © 2022 Christine No All rights reserved
from Whatever Love Means
Barrelhouse Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission