ENES HALILOVIĆ

SPEEDY YEARS 

autumn. 

and numerous medications for bloating. 

on the streets people armed with semi truths. 

the winters and wars are coming, 

and only two trades remain:  

historians and gravediggers. 

SHORE 

Zef, Catholic, Albanian. old man with a youthful smile. 

with a hoarse and quiet voice like any other 

farmer would have. if you travel from Bar to Ulcinj, 

on the right, close to the sea is where his garden lies. 

around ten acres. he cleared out the maquis 

removed the snakes' nests, dusted swarms of mosquitos. 

now, this landscape gazes into the sea: the trees  

neatly planted and carefully tended 

as if sprouting between two eyes. below them 

a rock licked by the sea. I gaze into the garden, again and again- 

refreshed by the times departed. 

I listen to the waves and tire myself with the years to come. 

there, above the house, peaches of noble sap grow 

and tangerines that diseases shy away from. 

along the fence black and white grapes, 

vines tangled like braids. 

below the house, oranges offering their thin-skinned fruit, 

without a single pit, and kiwi, stretching towards the terrace, 

with its fruit swinging 

in the sea breeze. 

there are the lemon trees, their fruits 

shining with pride like stars. and wise figs 

converting the light into cure. and four olive trees, 

on the cliff, flickering and whispering. by the garden 

lies the path

I often took. come in, have a pick, 

he would say, and I declined, hesitant. 

and then he would pick the fruit he offered. 

Zef, an old man with a youthful smile. 

dug, watered and sailed away. to the other shore. 

 

A WOMAN AND ME 

on the bus: 

a woman next to me, reading my book, 

reading my words. 

and myself, silent, curious: 

a strange woman with my book 

and me, stranger to her- 

feeling shame,like a fetus would 

if it was watching its parents at the moment of conception. 

it went on, that woman's reading 

hopping from verse to verse, from page to page. 

and then, she pressed my book to her bosom 

and travelled in her thoughts. 

and I was safe, like a young kangaroo 

in its mother's po

uch.  

Translated from Serbian by Katarina Ristanović Acović