This old heart of mine

Sure it's been broke a thousand times
but never quite as literally
as that Sunday morning.
Although, while my heart did stop,
the problem, strictly speaking,
was a coronary artery.
Narrowed.
I see a crumbling path
overgrown with moss and lichen,
leading to a neglected house.
In the front garden, a tree,
something like dogwood, leaves dark
and polished as a Victorian parlour.
No light reaches the house
so it's cold inside
although the table is set
for dinner, a record spins
endlessly on a turntable, laughter
echoes from another decade.
Upstairs, in the monastic stillness
of the bedroom
you see the word help, fingered
backwards in the grime of the glass.