She will live forever now, in a way, he said,
under the shade of the growing pear tree,
a slab of stone marking the extraordinary.

Nearly five months of summer into fall,
he nursed her like a parent a sick child,
learning to communicate. Trying to see.

She had been simple, uncomplicated and loyal,
trusting him to help her, to make it go away.
His inability to do so cut him like the obvious.

Some day, he thought, many years from now,
pick a year, any year – perhaps 2123,
when life has long since been the death of me,

They will find her, the remnants of the cloth
he’d used to wrap her up in death so delicately,
and wonder why. They would never know.

He smiled. For that would be their tragedy,
not his, certainly not hers, for neither history
nor mud record feelings or strange friendship,

only bones. And stories pocked with mystery.