She Left Him (27 Voicemails)

The night she died,
she called out his name
forty-seven times,
one for each month
her heart had belonged to him.
I sat with her and held her hand
as dozens of doctors
shoved charcoal down her throat,
trying to rid her frail body
of the poison she'd tried
to drown it in.
I listened to her crying
about why it must be
my hand holding hers,
and not his hand.
I adjusted her hospital gown
and punched her pillow a couple times
to get it "just right."
And when the doctor came in
and told us there was nothing
left for them to do,
I finally shed a tear
while she stopped crying
with a relieved sigh
and gave herself over
to the 'beyond' whose existence
she'd been questioning
the hour before.