Lois Howard
Halil Selimi
You were a student
painting slogans on a
road in Pristina
freedom for Kosovo
your cause
long before Kosovo became
an open wound at Europe’s
heart.
Yours was a peaceful
protest, without violence
yet violent men took from you
youth and liberty, giving instead
an 8-year sentence
and you became our prisoner
of conscience.
We knew you only through
“case history”,
the file we held and letters.
Whether the ones we wrote
to faceless men in power
effected any justice,
we never knew, receiving
no reply.
After 8 years your case
was closed. Were you released?
How did you fill the space
8 years had stolen from you?
So small a demonstration
so large a penalty.
Did life and civil war
demand a greater still?
Page(s) 66
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