My Grandmother Poem by Alessandra Liverani

My grandmother has been smoking since the age of thirteen
Barely a decade after from her mother's breast being weaned
She's still smoking keenly at the age of eighty-five
'How lucky she is' you say, 'That she is still alive'

That she was able to enjoy all those years of smoking
All those many, many years of constantly choking
On the poisonous, unpleasant fumes of the deadly cigarette
How lucky she has been, she should have no regrets

Through war, through poverty, through immigrating to afar
Always buying, always smoking, from not a day was she barred
Every single day a life spent with cigarettes, her friend
They have comforted her through all her life until the very end