TE21 Serbian Moments

Marija Kneževic

Breathing Technique

Silk Road

And where does this lead to?! The doctor crashed down on my exhaustion When she saw the ashtray, the unfiltered cigarettes, The pack of cigarette holders after which her voice Would reach its maximum volume.

To Naila

“. . . the plot is gone as soon as the sea appears” Danijel Dragojević, “The Hawser”

Where to? I let the words out quite easily Without having, in fact, Any single interlocutor in mind.

Little by little we grow fond of our neighborhood The way dogs and others, favorites, get attached To people, not knowing nor desiring to know About the degree of belonging. So in our circle too there are newsstands, potholes, Half-empty hairdressers, gracious drugstores where We leave the most money, battered dumpsters, Exhibition parking lots and gypsy teams, counters Fitted out with all a person really needs, Grocers who’ll supply us with homesickness if we dare Travel away anywhere, in a circle of colors, voices, the pride We old natives feel, for only we know the hour of the fall Of a ramshackle fa ade, a balcony’s final refusal at a time When they’re mostly hanging spontaneously. We don’t make it up, no we’re really not alive if we don’t Reciprocally ask every day in front of the “Synthesis” shop How we’re doing, did the child finally get a job, how is mama Tolerating these crazy changes in the weather, how is it they

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