Memories

I believe
his eyes betokened
the pioneer spirit,
as did the jut of his jaw
- so forcibly -
the farsighted gaze,
the winglike structure of his mind.
He gerrymandered
the boundaries of my heart
- my heliocentric constituency -
to include him at every turn.
He’s my memory now,
a surface hard
with incised marks,
that he made impassable
to temptation and doubt.
I feel again
infinitesimal pain.
My whole being cries out for him.
But it intimates - the silent Paraclete -
and every mortal word of it
is le mot juste.