On the Death of a Man I Knew However Briefly Who Touched Me Deeply

Pressed into my skin
an embossed impression.
Once was a foot,
now there is nothing,
but a footprint

and the reflection of light
in other people's faces.
Making eye's burn
and salt water flow.

His image is triggered by this motion:
leaning hard into my podium
to make a point,
elbows arched high.
Head down like a pouncing feline.
Voice modulating.
Face animated.
As I differentiate between prepositions of place
(at, on, or in),
I'm watching him lecture,
It's Tuesday night,
And I'm not sure if I want to be there,
so I sit in the back of the room,
comfortable in my wayward faith back there against the wall,
And somehow this big tall man he comforts me,
his faith, it comforts me,
his voice, it comforts me,
(I can feel his love still and it comforts me)
I'm afraid to greet him because I'm not what I could be,
and I know he'll see that,
still I go to hear him speak,
I sit in the back and
I hear his voice boom,
"This is what we believe: there is no one so bad that he is beyond the reaches of God's grace, and there is no one so good that he does not stand in need of God's grace."
And when he's done,
I slip out without saying a word.

This memory should pitter out,
like a species dying out,
or a letter hidden in a box beneath your bed,
mixed with a hundred other letters, the contents of each
a mystery.
Slowly growing damp and moldy, and one day discarded.

But now we must find the letter and carry it
in our pocket.
For once a shadow,
now it is everything
that is left.

Pressed into my skin
an embossed impression
once was a man
now there is nothing
but a memory, slowly,
slowly
fading away.