You handed me your heart and I held it
felt it, squeezed it through my fingers
staring lingers, that's the ringer
it kept time once, pendulum swinging
in metric, you were electric
ten ticks for every tock
it was a shock to see you waste away
tumbling like a lock, in decay
gave it up on Christmas Day
filled my stockings with trinkets
then meshed with the machines
that beeped and kept your time
ten ticks for every tock
I sat beside your bed,
ate vanilla bean ice cream and
stared at the sea foam green ceiling
and counted the time between beeps
ten, ten, then eleven, slowing down
it wasn't in my head, the nurses
said it was routine, a regression to the mean
but it was your heart that was routine
keeping time safe
but then your eyes were empty
and I could see interplanetary space
in between the accordion regulating
your breathing's pace
then the beeping ceased
and where once I was with a man in a bed
in a room with machines and statues of saints
peering down with stoic grace,
I was then alone.