​Regina Dilgen     Delray Beach     (Judy Ireland)
Something Has Gone Terribly Wrong in the Atomic Big Time: The Movie

Saturdays as it started getting dark I watched Thriller Theater
The movies were always the same, 
Something was wrong in the world, things much amiss
And the minute you realized this, you could not go back, not ever. 
A man had grown to monster size, exposed to radiation.  
He could only sit on the beach, wrapped in a huge cloth, waiting. 
Spiders were the size of rooms, hiding in terrible caves. 
These things were out there, and now all the people in the movies knew.  
Once you knew, 
everything was ruined. 
I watched in the rumpus room with its oversize furniture, 
the garage close by stocked with the delivery from the pretzel and soda man, 
its own kind of shelter.  
The grown ups 
would come to say goodbye 
before they left for their crowded parties. 
Heavy make-up /perfume and cologne leaving fallout  
They mushroomed above
Giants themselves 

 Originally published in Persimmon Tree, Winter, 2022​