by Katarina Pavičić-Ivelja

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He left back in the 90s and never returned.

The stranger smiling at me

from the other side of the bench

somewhere in Uppsala.

I smile and he smiles.

We smile

at each other.

How quaint, I think

and so does he.

He tells me about a girl

he used to love in my hometown

before he was one of them and she was one of us.

Or was it the other way around?

It depends on who you ask.

And his cousin

who had a kafana in the old country

that I should visit

if it’s still there

if I ever find myself

on the other side of the river.

I promise I will go

with the girl from my hometown

when I find her

and tell her

about the stranger in Uppsala

who loved her.

When I return to

”the land of peasants in the mountainous Balkans”.

It does not translate well.

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[first published in Suburban Witchcraft Magazine]

© Katarina Pavičić-Ivelja

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Author’s note: The poem “It Does Not Translate Well” deals with the sentiment of ‘picking up the pieces of brotherhood’ decades after the war and subsequent breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s (the popular slogan of Yugoslavia having been ‘Brotherhood and Unity’) which caused a wave of emigration. It aims to portray one scene in the gradual process of learning to reconnect and move forward through our shared experience.

The line “the land of peasants in the mountainous Balkans” refers to the poem “A Bloody Fairytale” by Desanka Maksimović. While the words can be translated, I believe that the emotional impact of said line in the Balkans is closely tied to the shared lived experience and, as such, truly does not translate well.

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Katarina Pavičić-Ivelja (she/her) is a journalist turned lecturer who primarily writes poetry “za svoju dušu”/”for her soul”, as the Balkans say. Her writing journey started through journalistic work at a feminist news site Libela but she has lately started focusing more on other forms of writing. As an avid lover of literature, she enjoys trying her hand at both prose fiction and poetry. Most of her poetry is rooted in her own lived experience. She holds a Master’s degree in English Language and Literature, as well as a Master’s degree in Philosophy. Currently, she teaches Children’s Literature at the Faculty of Educational Sciences in Pula, Croatia.

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