Cause of Death Fiction

Fifteen years ago
Last Valentines Day,
She passed out long-stemmed
Roses her husband
Sent her on her plane.

Home two days later,
Unhinged by the meds
She’d grown addicted
To layering, washed
Down with hard liquor,

She waved a butcher
Knife at her husband
Then at her own throat,
Then ran out the door
Into city snow

And vanished somewhere
To lay low. Divorce
Papers soon followed.
She dodged them. She dodged
Interventions, dodged

To ERs for meds,
Dodged out of rehabs,
Dodged until she died
In a coma from
Septicemia.