My Grandmother:::Valzhyna Mort

my grandmother
doesn't know pain
she believes that
famine is nutrition
poverty is wealth
thirst is water

her body like a grapevine winding around a walking stick
her hair bees' wings
she swallows the sun-speckles of pills
and calls the internet the telephone to america

her heart has turned into a rose the only thing you can do
is smell it
pressing yourself to her chest
there's nothing else you can do with it
only a rose

her arms like stork's legs
red sticks
and i am on my knees
howling like a wolf
at the white moon of your skull
grandmother
i'm telling you it's not pain
just the embrace of a very strong god
one with an unshaven cheek that scratches when he kisses you

Poetry::: Valzhyna Mort

maybe you too sometimes fantasize
that god resembles your most difficult teacher
the one who never gave the highest mark
one day he invites your parents to school
and who knows what he is telling them there
perhaps that any further effort is now futile
because you're never going to graduate from life
with honors
maybe something different
something completely and utterly different
but when this talk is done
your parents never come back
maybe they're ashamed now
a boy from the neighborhood tells you they're dead
he says look even the Beatles die
never mind your parents
besides who knew them except you
all their songs were written by other people

but you refuse to believe him can't get any sleep
you cry at home
you cry among people you know and people you don't
on the street
because they've left and are ashamed
to return to you again