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Lena on the Bus

cliff lynn

Fourteen years old,
and thinking pre-law
My Bosniak Girl
Her friends are all legless,
or dead, or moved on
My Bosniak Girl

The morning sunspray on her lenses
Hides her pretty black eyes from the stranger
Her coincidental traveling companion
The American soldier dispatched to her country
Much too late to save her childhood

She speaks English
much better than he
My Bosniak Girl
Spinning yarns too gruesome
for a child of fourteen
My Bosniak Girl

My immediate family was left intact
We were fortunate
Snipers never hit us while we queued
For bread or drinking water,
And the grenades in the lobby
Found only the neighbors' children
So fortunate, we

On the road to an aunt's house,
a well-earned reprieve
My Bosniak Girl
Sarajevo's my home,
why ever would I leave
My Bosniak Girl

At a pit stop, the soldier buys her some
Blackberries from a roadside mother and
Her three stick-children.
Bosniak Girl scolds the American for not haggling,
Then explains patiently, as if to a child:

The adults, they say it's the Serbs
And the Croats.
And the Serbs believe the Bosniaks
And the Croats are at fault.
And the Croats...well, you see, don't you?
But it's in each of us, this animal.
We all must try to understand this, change this...

Fourteen years old
So fortunate, we.



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