Truths are untenable! We cheered, like at the dog

races, for the lies that barked the fiercest. My brother

denounced the neighbor’s fat cow for ruminating

marijuana. For the sake of future betrayal,

we all, like little Jesuses, dragged the cross of

hammer and sickle on our backs. And, truly, when

the iron curtain, like a shower curtain, came unhooked,

and fell apart into the soap suds, naked, in seven-league

boots, we leapt to the other side to be born again.

Mown grass, as it did before, smells of its own blood,

just as it is, and the moon’s red face gazes through

cypresses, lined up like spindles, as if through the iron bars

of a prison window. Only words are free! But they serve

no purpose, for truths are unwelcome. In the night sky,

open to all, stones bloom, and the hand of darkness

harnesses the constellation of the Little Bear to the

constellation of the Great Chariot. I don’t understand

how we manage to know nothing about it at all?

Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović

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