First Four Days in Turnišče
Croatia, Summer 2011

I.
It has been two years—
kopriva grows under the trees,
cobwebs line the corners,
fly corpses speckle the floors.
Baka takes up her old broom.

II.
I find a dead frog—
his feet are like crooked twigs.
Flies weave through his chest,
a beetle sits in his mouth.
A bird swoops down, waiting.

III.
No relatives yet—
three days gone and only calls.
Board games fill our night.
Jenga blocks clank to the floor.
Pick-up-sticks click with each turn.

IV.
Baking the next day—
Baka unrolls dough like maps.
She says, It’s your turn.
Moist dough sloshes in my hand
as she hums an old folk song.

Remembering the Yugoslav War
Summer 2009

Returning from the Adriatic Coast with smiles and tanned skin,
we passed through Slunj
in the beige Thunderbird.
Turning my head to look at the town,
I saw houses with bullet wounds
from the war fourteen years ago,
standing among the tourists camping by the Korana River.

A light from one of the houses shone through the holes
as it must have years earlier
when a family hid in their cellar,
hands shaky and sweaty with fear. Gunshots cracked
through the white walls and the father and son ran upstairs,
aiming to protect
the mother and daughters below. Instead,
they became target practice
for the laughing enemy
who would not stop there—
lighting the blood-wet bodies
on fire
along with the cellar that still contained
the live mother and daughters. Satisfied, the enemy
walked away from the flaming house,
leaving the bodies
to crumple and contort and crisp with ash.
A mother, father, son, and daughters
among many between 1991 and 1995,
dying for the “Greater Serbia.”

And what about the husband and wife who lived—
having nothing to eat
but pigeons?
The husband said, “I feel bad about catching them. They are
symbols of peace. I have
no choice.”
As the fire on the stove burned blue then red-orange,
he held the flapping gray bird in his left hand
and took his right,
placing it around the bird’s thin, feathered neck. With a quick crunch
of bones,
peace broke into two
just as the enemies banged new holes into nearby buildings.

I remember asking my mother,
“Whose houses are these? Did you know
anyone? Were we hit back
in Zagorje? How many
died? Why
did it happen?”
As she attempted to answer my questions,
I turned my head again to the wounded houses,
but the Thunderbird rounded a curve
and I could not see anymore.