4125 - Life that became smoke

N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Angeliki Papadopoulou

I was born petit
I never had weight
and my health was a disease.
They said to me that I should thank
God that made me
and my mother that gave birth to me.
But I didn’t know how to do it
and my cough was dry.
Only after years
when I could put
the candles on my cake too,
I bought
and lighted ten cigarettes
so that my tender mum
to see better
my eyes shedding tears
from smoke of joy before they close.
And only after that I died.