In Memory of Kenny (updated in 2022)

In Memory of You, My Brother  

1968-1982

(updated in 2022)

Sometimes I forget

What can never be again,

A life that disappeared,

Yours, begun on a fearsome,

Ice-drenched December

Night, ended thirteen years later,

In a car after a baseball game,

Less than a mile

From home, forty

Shattered years

Ago. I can barely remember

The timbre of your voice,

Chanting your Bar Mitzvah

Prayers, the sound of your

Lingering laugh. When I sift

Through your photos,

The collage of your silent

Faces seem out of focus

In dense disbelief.

I keep imagining

The ghost of you hovering,

Helping us, how I don’t know.

I imagine you still dribbling

On a gray pavement, each

Shot a silent swish. Do you

Glide above the children

Back and forth on a court

In a league named in your memory?

Can you help them stop and savor

Their lives; can you help me?

Today, my dream is a prayer

That you, dad, and mom

Know what we know,

Your family now blessed with

New life, two beautiful girls

And two boys who remind

Me of you, fifty years ago, and

Each precious moment of

That life, yours, that I now try

So hard to remember.