Conversations with Dead People

After you died, you stood before

me in a kitchen that didn’t exist.

Everything was wrong, yet there you were

talking to me as if it were just months ago.

I cried when it hit me that I was asleep,

both in the dream, and when I woke.

I said to you, “You know this isn’t real.

Grandma, you’re dead.”

And you looked at me and smiled

in your pink-flower-printed pajamas

and said, “I know honey,

but you needed me.”

This happened years ago

but remains fresh in my memories

as if I had just seen your face last night

for the final time all over again.

I wish you were here now

to be brutally honest and loving.

The world could use more of that

or at least I could.