My Grandma Rachel Age Fifteen Poem by Tamir Greenberg

Today my grandma Rachel turned fifteen
and the saliva drooling from her mouth
is but a wondrous, diaphanous thread,
a path of light, a boat for drunken angels
to sail through into her body.

And these are the names of God's emissaries
who came to anoint her feet in oil
at her bed in the general ward
at 'Laniado' hospital in Netanya:
The angel of the excreting sheets.
The angel of bed sores.
The angel of the breathing machine.

What's to my grandma Anne Sexton's delicate wrist?
What's to my grandma the long curls of Arthur Rimbaud?

'I'm happy, ' says grandma in French.
'I'm happy.' Grandma hugs the angel of the breathing machine
which emits into her lungs air purified of germs.
'Soon, my shadow will strike a small
pile of snow, and then I'll turn fifteen.'
'Sheets, ' says the nurse impatiently. 'A pile of sheets.'
'Marius, my love, will come to meet me near the fence
of the high-school for girls in Bucharest.' Grandma laughs.
'I was there already years ago.
It was before my shadow refused to freeze
on a small pile of snow, and when my love
kissed me, his sweet kiss blossomed
into my body like a rose petal,
and later, in my father's wine cellar,
in the dim wine cellar, Marius threw me
to the floor, and when he tore my virginity,
my right hand struck the tap of a barrel
and wine oozed onto the filthy floor.'

Grandma weeps. The angel of the breathing machine
industriously drones a rhythmic song. In the hallway
the nurses shout. Beyond the window
I see roofs of ugly buildings
gnawing at the sun until it is no more.