For Cousin Larry
I did not know you as well
As I would have liked
But if I search through
My web of memories
I find gems that light the path
To the childhood and the time
When I worshipped my big cousins
I soared through the air like an arrow
When you and Danny would toss me over
Grandma Rose's white marble floor
Towards her living room couch
I watched your movements from the back seat
When, armed with a learners permit and car keys
You drove us to the Big Foot Ice Cream shop
Near grandma's house in Florida
Where my chocolate Sunday would drip
as I stood on a chair, watching you
master Mrs. Packman
But our last drive is draped across my mind
Like an American flag hanging proudly
From a wounded building
In your new Porsche we blazed like a comet
Weaving in and out of traffic on the LIE
In conversation I grasped the enormity of your success
And how far we had come since Big Foot
All your life you took deep, thick breaths
Not simply the kind of breaths
Which bring oxygen to the blood
Or which sustain the body from one day the next
When your lungs expanded and contracted
You take in everything
Try every wine, tell every joke, and attempt any prank
You were a chemist, you could extract the humor
The kindness that existed in the atmosphere
of a room and you could hone it, exhale it
And make it your own
When the blood clotted in your lungs
You did not quite breathing
Others may have gasped in fear
But while your lungs expanded slowly, painfully
You did not settle for an ordinary breath
Grey ash has permeated the autumn sky
Workers sift endlessly through unrecognizable
Piles of rubble
The nation, is fearful to take its next breath
For me the act of writing is like breathing
But since September 11th I have been afraid
Just to put words down on paper
But I think of you, I listen for your voice
Trying to hear what you would say
Trying to remember how to breath