Brittle white roses

You drive past the country cemetery on a cool morning.

Rows of the dead long buried and long forgotten. Weathered headstones and tombstones. Markers half-sunken into the earth. A small memorial garden shaded by outstretched gums.

On the lawn along the road you see small clumps of perfect white roses catch the rising light.

They look ethereal, otherworldly. You smile at the notion that someone had the foresight to plant life along the edge of death.

Until you look closer and realise they’re plastic, bleached by the sun and blown off the graves by a cruel wind.