Renewed Finality

Chubby fingers
grasp flaming tiger lilies.
Aubrey’s eyes gaze downward,
tracing a name in the stone.
Chiseled, glassy granite roses,
captured in their fullest bloom
surround the scroll
that reads “Petersen.”
An oppressive
July heat
weighs down the windswept tendrils of baby hair,
making Aubrey’s fair curls heavy with sorrow.
She doesn’t understand,
this little one,
that her grandmother -
my vibrant, radiant mother
whom Aubrey will never know -
lies beneath the emerald carpet,
dappled with rays
of sunlight.
Jagged concrete
protrudes from the base of the marker.
I enfold my niece in my arms,
reminded that
though it has been two years,
this grave
is still fresh
in my heart.