The Saved Message

Cleaning out my phone, a digital chore,

so many old messages, what are they for?

Then I clicked it, by accident, really.

And there it was, your voice, quite clearly,

through the tiny speaker, a little tinny, faint.

'Just checking in,' you said. No complaint.

And a dog barked, somewhere far away.

It stopped me. Stopped the whole day.

It was so mundane, so brief, so small.

But hearing you, after all this fall

of silence, of distance, of just not knowing,

it felt like a window, briefly blowing

open, letting in something I’d buried.

Just 'checking in.' The way you hurried

that last word. I saved it again.

Just in case. Just then.