They come back in their white
shifts, their ruffled shawls of salt
white, the way the dead always return
when you need them the most—

when it's too hot to do anything
but picture the worst—the Bomb
finally fallen, the world burned-up,
the entire planet radioactive—

when you are too weak to do anything
but lie in a stupor and call them back
to drift at your side, in eyelet dresses
of old starlight, fresh-faced and cold.

Poet: Susan Kelly-DeWitt
Poem: Summer Of The Grandmothers
Volume: Poetry, August 2002
Year: Published/Written in 2002
Poem of the Day: Dec 11 2007

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