Dragan Dragojlović

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Soot and Ruins


In the village
there were no houses,
or stables, or fences,
only soot and ruins.
And the dead, decaying
in the sluggish winter sun.

When our count was completed,
a flock of wild shadows
screeched above our
heads.
Already the bitterness of dusk
blanketed everything.

We didn't know what to do.
But when someone lit a candle
we were dumbfounded:
from the other side of reality
the dead were staring at us
in surprise,
as if we had never existed.


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