So skinny you could almost hear
his belt buckle scrape his backbone,
he was one of those funny little men
you meet in the city, from the look of them
wonder how they stay alive.
Retired, a volunteer, he tended
the chapel in the nursing home where
my mother-in-law lived her last years.

Whenever we met in the hallway,
his emaciated, thin-bearded face
cracked in half with a smile.
Definitely an odd duck, I’d think, but nice.
He’d exclaim with genuine conviction,
“God loves you!” or “It’s a blessed day!”
Though darting and mercurial, he never faltered
in his kindness, cordiality, morale.

Pastor Bob died the night after
my mother-in-law passed away.
The receptionist told us, “Bad lungs.
He knew he wasn’t going to get better.”
Pastor Bob, a white man, had a congregation in Watts.
Pastor Bob marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Pastor Bob died alone by choice in a room
with only a bed and a poster of Bobby Kennedy.
Why do we learn these things about others so late?
Pastor Bob, one of those funny little men you meet
    in the city,
definitely an odd duck—
maybe a crazed saint.