Memoriam

(for Dr. Paul Longmore)

I never, in life, addressed you
as Dr. Longmore.

Paul seemed more built to suit.
You were so far above all
of that academic pretentiousness.
My lack of granting you degree earned title
was not meant,
or- hopefully – taken as lack of respect

It’s a more fitting honor
to your date obsessed, historian’s mind,
which I am already missing, that
I just had my assistant devote
state paid care minutes
to removing stamp and finding exact year on
postcard’s inaugural postmark
before I mail it off
to some Washington based poet I never met
and who, I assume, never heard of you.

Alas, non-historian who removed last stamp
wasn’t as careful as you would’ve been
and I can’t know what year
last century postcard dates from.

Well, professor, I gave it my all.