Eli Krasniqi ◄

how does one make a cocktail?
–   you take an empty bottle
from which women drink water, under watchful eyes,
drop-by-drop
while their trickled blood and sweat goes unnoticed

–   you put a bit of gasoline in the bottle, up to the half
–   a cloth
from women’s clothes, drenched in their sweat, torn women’s clothes
piece-by-piece
forcefully you thrust this cloth down the bottle’s throat, just as women swallow their cries

–   leave a portion of cloth outside the bottle, as the wick
–   no need for a lighter
their anger ignites a fire, no longer hesitant to burn
spark-by-spark
growing wider, larger, until it burns the roots of enslavement to ashes

in this grand celebration, don’t leave the cocktails on the table for self-service,
nor on the bread table,
nor on the salt one,
you hurl them at powerful patriarchs
you throw them
with strength
and heart.

YOU ARE A POEM

you sit on stairs of the yard and contemplate a house
you are thin, with short hair
your mother did not have time to grow your hair
there were many children in that yard, and many men
who got together in evenings, discussing the land
and the homeland.
you are little, with no wish to grow up
because you know that you won’t have the hand
of your mother forever.
you are afraid, so afraid
of men with wings that come at night to the window
of the room where you sleep
no one believes you that they come every night
you open your eyes, everyone is sleeping
you are by the window’s trail when they leave
you never grew up
you are a poem.
thin, in your mind with long hair
that touches the ground,
you’ve grown them with earth and grass
you nibble your fingers, secretively
you are built in letters,
verse by verse,
you bloom like cherry flower.
you cry, often you cry
you laugh with yourself more than with things around.
you daydream
you don’t like to sleep as you know that men
with wings will come again.
every morning you see socks with patches
and wings of men, hung behind the door,
bullets on the table
hairclips that have colors of roses
and letters fallen in the ground.

WHITE STARS

I am digging in the red bag
it lies beneath my black table, so I don’t stumble upon it.
I place things here that I no longer need, or so I believed

“here in europe, we cannot discard them anywhere
we sort through everything. we care for our planet earth”

tritico – I hope its expiration date hasn’t passed.

people are also sorted, in trains, at borders,
in camps.
in the sea,

every half-century or more,
or less
“we care for planet earth”

face creams with expired dates, the charger of my old samsung phone
old plastic white gloves, expired vitamin c, expired ibumetin.
how do I sort them out?
by color?
non-whites, it doesn’t matter
the whites – grouped in a circle
safely, like the stars of the european union.

binoculars I obtained at a foolish concert, old shirts, torn bikinis.
it’s been a long time since I’ve been to the sea.

tritico, tritico, tritico, where are you?

I need sleep. I need to forget, forgotten I already am
perhaps then I could dream, of the sea, washing my face
while I lay on its shores, as the sun rises
weeping for the drowned dreams,
even them sorted and pushed
drowned little bodies
unwanted, blamed, feared,
while being observed with white binoculars,
beneath
white stars.

MY SKIN

this is my skin, thin, pale, translucent to me. it offers no protection, never has.
crows find shelter there, breathing from its pores. the city seeks refuge within.
roofs of homes, faded flags of the nation. inside, creatures dwell, trembling puppies too, wounded, killed, and blinded, weeping within me.
blood bursts forth at times. fragile heart. fragile bones. the rings on my spine, like prison bars, hold the whirlwinds of others’ lives.
my skin is thin, pale, radiant. it confines the killed loves. and when they emerge,
the city kills them again.
I bring them back inside, like fading memories. I imbue them with my blood, to endure yet one more spring morning,
beneath the shelter of my skin.