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Colin Mackay

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Dream after all these years

Darkness, rain on the window
and branches waved around orange
street lights. I slept
in my blameless room under
soft blankets behind double glazing
and red curtains. Slept
and went in sleep back to Bosnia
where I had buried people
bloody-handed like a butcher
and saw Svetlana there
in that field of carcasses
naked and torn but somehow living
the gash in her throat opening
as she breathed
her face restored to beauty
and eyes smiling.

Then we talked
in the meadow swept by bullets
and she asked me about the war.
It’s ended, I said
but just for the moment. 
Oh, she said, and Milosevic
is he still in power?
Well, he haunts a palace
full of statues and policemen
if that is power.
And her lips smiled with her eyes
smiled with the same sad tolerance
the bullets had scythed down.

Have you found another woman
she asked, are you making love?
No I said.  I’ve given up
my desire for children.
Now I live like a holy man.
You? - And she laughed.
God, but I loved her murdered face!
Svetlana, I cried
where are you now?
are life and death one?
can you tell me - ?

But she faded
and I saw the grave
in that desecrated field
filling with rain.
And woke -
and it was dark
the rain was on the window
and all this was
a thousand red sunsets
ago.

Page(s) 38

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