Raising the Dead

is never easy, not even in a dream. 
You start with an old woman, 
long, grey tufts of hair shooting 
out of nose and ears, skin drawn 
taut against bone. 
                               When you open 
her eyes, you will know she is 
your grandmother, and that indistinct 
man next to her must be 
your grandfather. 
                             But when you open 
his mouth, bucked white teeth have 
supplanted the tobacco-browned 
diminutives that once sifted 
irrepressible laughter.

Soon you’ve softened and billowed skin, 
trimmed nose and ears, fired eyes with embers 
from the potbelly stove, and restored 
ancient atoms, molecules, and cells.

                              When the time for speech 
has come, you find you cannot breathe 
the word—the words you wish to hear 
are not your own. 
                             To speak of sun and sand, 
of black bears milling just beyond 
screened doors and windows, of hornet’s 
nests in greying outhouses torched 
with old railroad flares, of back-breaking 
oar-pulling against cold Ontario 
wind and rain— 
                            This is to be 
simply grateful for the life that was 
and is, with no need 
for any life to come.