Dear Santa

Dear Santa, please hurry here.
Our daughter Marie is only four
but her logic is as clear
as midnight broken by the searing light
of the bomb blast.
She's afraid you aren't coming
because the shelter has no chimney,
only an airvent to filter out death.
She smiled a little when we told her
she'd join you in heaven.
But the morphine is almost gone and
she won't be able to smile much longer.

—a woman 
  Puget Sound
  North America