(For Ray)
copyright 2024 by Jack A. Urquhart

Since you’ve been gone, I have made of You an alter replete with the relics of your life and times: your compass, your slide rule, your red plastic comb (tacky in its donnish pocket liner). These rest atop the rosewood box, home to the yet-retained dust and dirt of You.

Nearby, favorite photos mark time with the miniature clock radio, my first gift to You, and that decanter of lavender-olive oil (always too pretty to open). I’ve filled your prized glazed bowl with a favorite Parisienne memory: the chestnuts we collected on a cold, damp December morning—Jardin du Luxembourg, the whole magical place all to ourselves.

Next to them, a few votives and an empty bottle—Pavillon Rouge 2000 Du Chateau Margaux—still carry the dust of your last Birthday celebration.

All this evidence of absence, these alterations, sit the Northernmost corner of my little house, the one You never saw. I used your compass to plot the exact true North of your resting place. I’ve placed your car keys there, too, in that ugly woven basket, the one You refused to relinquish.

To this day, all my comings and goings—all my navigations—begin and end there. With You, Dear Man.