ALT For Alex Pretti Because his last words were for a woman; because he asked, are you okay, are you okay; because he had learned to say it by standing each night beside the dying; because sometimes he held their hands; because he had lived only as long as the scent of childhood in an album; because he was a son; because he sang once; because of all of it, because of all of it, because of all of it, tell it, tell the story: a breath has left; a country is dying; and a man laid his face on its pavement today as though he were listening to a patient's heart— even then, even at the ending— to do what he was there to do: heal. —Joseph Fasano