Invitation to Ground Zero

By William Jay Smith b. 1918

Into the smouldering ruin now go down:

And walk where once she walked and breathe the air

She breathed that final day on the burning stair

And follow her, beyond the fleeing crowds,

Into the fire, and through the climbing clouds.

Into the smouldering ruin now go down:

And find, in ashes bright as hammered tin,

A buried bone-white naked mannikin

That flung from some shop window serves to bind

Her body, and its beauty, to your mind.