In Montenegro
By hana_hausmeister

In Montenegro

The wind when She blows is rude

In the Summer,

The cold uninvited

Like a surgical finger or a plate

Against bare back skin,

And I chose to wear that strapless dress

Without the pimples if you’d be so kind,

But we’re not on British soil now,

I remember, here no please

Or apologies

But the customs are different

To which I need not accustom,

And though sometimes still a bow is brought

By the threat of the gun barrel,

Though action fades to talk and talk fades

Into the wind - no wonder walks are vulgar on a gale –

I don’t accustom; but my memories hail.

Here when the sun shines -

And She often daily does - from the mornings

When once I heard an air-raid alarm

And on other days the cockerel

Called before I was ready, you see

Everything; everything; every thing

And even the motes between the things,

As light this strong spies through those

Shadows but for the leaves that lap at it

And underneath their gecko dwells,

In twilight only reaching the fast fading fringe.

I listen to songs that Oliver sings on air

To the mandolin and the Balkans -

I feel upon that word; I feel the word

Itself a curl

After the L unfurls the tongue -

Unfurls a tongue coiled closed inside -

And then a K

Creates the cut that is the mountains,

Separate the sea but the sea cannot separate them,

Not even in Kotor

Where they’re more the old town

Than the old wall that surrounds the

Little Lovely Town

And I hope no more of you discover it

Than those who have,

And I hope you stay in Budva with the Hollywood.

‘Black eyes crying’, blue seas beckon

And a little fishing boat bobs

Upon the beat of baby waves, after a storm,

That soothe Her Tivat’s pier so worn,

While I along the promenade walk and

Thrice lap the same place before I notice

That my father’s old ruined house -

Ivy strung its broken bricks and

Weakly wrung its standing splint -

Stands now no more, and in that space

On which the wasting building’s face

Once stared out across the bay

Two young new houses sprang in place.

In the time between these sore 4 weeks

And University - I realise

Something old has died -

Another born too soon upon its flames;

Lone ashes float on Summer wind’s remains.

I am a fraud follower, a

Pathetic patriot, but I excuse myself

Because a child reared between borders

Belongs once grown neither to one nor the other,

Nor will they understand this; me -

Nor does my tongue belong sole to my mother.

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