Milica Mijatović
Novo Brčko
Originally published in Red Wheelbarrow
Baka’s one-bedroom apartment is a bluedusk-colored
poem. Its pigeons coo me awake; city buses cradle me in
their wheels. The balconies—one in the bedroom, the other
in the living room—let just enough of the outside world
in. Soft shadows on the wall play hide-and-seek with
my dreams. I sleep on the pullout couch, brush my teeth
in the purple-tiled bathroom, eat on the wooden chairs Deda
bought a few centuries back. It’s just my grandma and me.
We look through black-and-white photographs of her life—
I watch as she lingers over some, passes quickly over others.
She brings out Mama’s wedding dress, and I put it on, twirl.
She cries. I sink into my book on the couch as the TV
hums just one octave above the refrigerator. It’s bluedusk—
the sun is setting. The curtains walk with the wind, and
I remember Deda’s impressive collection of pins. We run
out of drinking water, so I head down to the public fountain,
two empty jugs in my hand. I read the graffitied signs again,
mostly love declarations and nationalistic leanings. I climb
the two flights back home, Baka serves peaches and plums,
and we talk about the weather. There’s enough hot water
to shower, and I listen to the 11p.m. bus from Beograd
zoom into the station. Baka plays a movie; tonight, it’s Ocean’s
Eleven. We doze through the action, murmur goodnight.
I head to my room, embrace the cool sheets as the old, drunk
men in the bar across the street sing some obscure battle song,
strum their guitars off-key, and I let them lull me to sleep.
Oj Golube, Moj Golube
Originally published in Plume
I was born to pigeons cooing.
Was the war over then? Not sure,
officially maybe yes, but Mama
gave birth in a windowless hospital.
And by windowless, I mean the windows
had been shattered by bullets or shrapnel,
so the draft almost killed all of us.
The pregnancy ward was one room,
beds like soldiers on the front line,
babies like bullets aimed at the next
one hundred years. I asked Mama
if she thought she was going to die.
She said the pigeons were everywhere,
and everything smelled bad. I asked
if anyone died. She said not everyone
noticed this big pigeon in the corner,
gray and blue, mora da je majka, poised
and happy. Warm. Sometimes I think
I hear cooing, a sort of calling home.
It’s as if the pigeons remember
Mama holding me til a nurse took me
because Mama was coughing, sick.
Both of us lived. It had to have been
the pigeons. They were our peace treaties,
our ceasefires. One time a man told me
every pigeon you see is a prayer—svaki
golub je molitva—and it made me wonder
if Mama ever saw any pigeons at all.
