Pain sears my stomach as I gasp for breath.
I collapse. My blood pools. I'm consumed by death.
And yet, I'm not, as I watch men in dark vests,
Some with gold letters - CSI - stitched on their chests.
I'm not really there, just a faded image of what was,
And I know I can't leave, not yet, well, because
I watch them wheel a body, my body through the doors,
And I won't leave until the man who did this is behind bars.
For twenty-two years the evidence sits in a plastic bag in a cardboard box,
Then a twenty-three year old woman has its secrets unlocked.
She was just a year old. She takes out her baby shoe stained with blood.
She looks at her badge, in her eyes tears begin to flood.
She grabs the box and brings it to a room with a whiteboard covered in notes
"He's back," she says, while playing with the clasp upon her throat.
On the board are three pictures of three women, who lost their lives,
And beneath them the pictures of three identical knives.
In one of those pictures, a familiar face,
My printed smile much out of place.
She and her team set up a profile,
Who he might be, and what was his style,
Who is in danger, and what to look for,
His targets? Moms whose husbands died before
Their child was born. My mind brings me to
Thoughts of weeds in a field cutting through
The flowers that once thrived. Just like the cells
Of my husband's liver. He went through hell.
He's why I was vulnerable to attack.
And I'm why she had to pull up the slack.
I watch her give the profile a face,
And soon a name finds its place.
After weeks of error, I watch her clap him in 'cuffs.
After so many years of waiting, it's finally enough.
"A chroi, a ghra, a stor," I whisper as she sleeps,
Still grasping the necklace I kept for her to keep.
Stepping back I stumble into the man she never knew.
Hand in hand we head for Heaven, as the parents she was forced to lose.
