in 1989
yugoslavia
finally discovered the hamburger.

a crystal submarine
surfaced at night when the full moon was flipping,
it saw dubrovnik and glued its gaze to its towers for the longest time,
so close to its benevolent lips.

all the sailors
wrote home immediately
all those conversations
were recorded immediately on the sterilized magnetic tape.
and then one of them swam to the shore
to wipe away that one single tear, vino amaro,
that century by century
was falling down the city walls by night
when on the horizon you can see 80 billion crosses
in just one of yours amen, oh sea!  

I’m the silk sold to distant voices, the buckle in
Venetian blinds of a day so distant.
our prophecy was written
on the inside wall of the shell’s home.
my tomb could be seen from the roof of that city, oh sea
why can’t they burn you down?

but there was nobody
then or now
on the minčeta tower
who would dance on the red-hot coal
and mock crickets
whose voices were barbaric caravans
where all our beggars
washed and slept.

at noon, the cannon on the grič tower
fires a heavy iron ball
that ploughed through my father’s fields.

I will steal a bag of soup
and spoon by spoon,
berry by berry
flash by flash,
I will inhale some of it,
some of its mast, oh sea,
give me more
on the railways of well-watered cotton.  

and then
you and I
together will read the letter
that someone wrote to us
on the black flag
her only evening gown
sent a long time ago

from mouth to mouth in a brand new bottle.