​Poems by Tatjana Bijelic 

1.
Balkan woman archetype in transition
 
Andja died hard, bless her longevity
for she raised thirty kids and memorized twice as many
complicated grandkid names such as Yugoslovenka, Yorgovanka
and her sons and daughters, safe in Tito’s country, would buy her
white bread, rich like a royal cake, soft and full of sugar.
 
She was a hungry child in the First World War, and a starving
pregnant woman in the Second and before, her drained mother’s
skeleton and her father’s working force, her husband’s fertile ground
and an ox who sweats on it, and a large triple-breasted milk-and-honey pool
feeding her own and others’ progeny.  She was the one for all.
 
She was made of steel, made of stone, but she neither danced
nor watched television, and chatting with neighbors was a waste of time
for a good patriarchal wife. She cooked incessantly, planted forests
and cut trees, rode tractors and repaired trucks, for being tall and muscular
meant even higher expectations, like darning socks and washing toddlers,
and her husband, when sick or frightened, would drink her herbal teas.
 
On his stronger days, she was cursed and beaten, but the villagers
spoke nicely of her, calling her ženica, a poor little woman, bless her heart
and loyalty, her small mouth and no desire, her loving eyes and tiny spoon,
her silent breathing and tied body, no space, no face, no her
 
Andja hardly lived and lived hard, her losses were many but she survived
three wars and dreading the fourth, infant burials and rape pregnancies,
missing daughters and dead soldiers: her sons and children’s children.
But she toiled and prayed and dressed in black.
 
She also survived much better days, family gatherings, decadent cakes,
and great grandchildren moving abroad.
 
She would have survived even death itself, but years ago she asked
a gang of laughing girls to teach her skateboarding, every style,
 
and the school is still there, with or without her.
 
 
originally written in English, published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal 16, 2022
 
 
 
2.
Peaceful stranger
 
This morning I was at peace
with persistent leaking of waters
around and inside me
I let solutions and liquids
rinse my tranquil body
eliminating the last atom of lust
until I was sober enough
to look at you again
and I just couldn’t believe that such an
attraction fails to purify recent sediments
when it should be so easy
to get you out of the system and forget
that perhaps your dirty mind coupled with rakija
made no distinction between me and the cleaning lady
the day you decided to have it at all costs.
And instead of the lady, who I admire,
you screwed my peace and eloquence
making me gasp for words every time I try to clarify
whether you were or were not right in your binary ruminations.
 
This morning I was perfectly aligned
with serene waters of my solitude, and even my underpants
remained on a sole washline, dry and undisturbed.
 
I swallowed my breakfast slowly and enjoyed a cup of tea
thinking of abstract poetry and how at a particular moment
words undress our most primitive intentions and we yearn for more
chewing on a cinnamon cake. The one you didn’t like
teamed with the bitterness of your chai and I
went on keeping my juices at bay. But the way you sucked
 
on an empty cup
inserted your tongue again
amidst the placid movements of my thighs
and I felt licked and enraptured, catching fire
like a burning bagel whose center doesn’t hold
whose hole doesn’t center
whose ring is unable to keep
the honey dripping from your fingers
 
The morning I decided to be a peaceful stranger
you raced like a crazy horse and read all my maps
flawlessly, you knew me and sensed my weaknesses
your nothing was my something, and you played
more than I could imagine, but it was not you
fiddling with my stringy desires, it was certainly not you
barring the passion of my dancing feet, it was fear
 
deep like a chasm that devoured our ancestors
dreading foreign lands yet getting there
whenever we embrace
 
 
originally written in English, published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal 16, 2022
 

Tatjana Bijelic is a professor of American and British literature and Creative writing at the University of Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She is the author of three award-winning poetry collections, Edge Without an Edge (Rub bez ruba, 2006), Two Roads from Oxford (Dva puta iz Oksforda, 2009), One More Ticket for Picaro Trance (Karta više za pikarski trans, 2015), and the novel Hairs on the Tongue (Dlake na jeziku, 2024). Her poems, short stories, and essays have been published in various journals and anthologies and translated into German, English, Hungarian, Slovene, Macedonian, and Danish. Her verse novel Rihtanje rebra is forthcoming in 2025.

---