She regularly visits the cemetery,
sits for hours on the little folding stool
she brings with her, at his gravesite
and reminisces with him over moments
of joy and sadness they had shared.
Once a year she brings flowers
which she leaves in the small pot.
When she planted them in the soil
but would find them dead by her next visit.
She wondered if they died in sympathy
for the man she still mourns ten years on,
until she saw the maintenance man spraying
the weedkiller around the trees and headstones.
She asked why he used something so toxic
and he said, before turning away, that
nothing is toxic to those who rest here
except being forgotten by family and friends.