in a scene from the cassandra
crossing pitch black serbian
night gives way to the acetylene
of factories tunnels & dams ringed
by lights blazing passports waving
(facsimiles of concrete aqueducts
soldered bridges inch over ravines
& the night mists are pumped from
some arcane machines we followed
the blue line of the bosniak river
through that notional republik
stopping at magical intervals
along our meandering switchback
journey seeing the impossibly lush
mountains (giving way at last to
sandblasted hills – & the roman
semicircular white stone bridges
become perfect circles in dawn’s
reflective air all at once to be
resolved in the new stari most
winking in the fresh day glare
peeking around the green river
bend a new parapet from which to
fearlessly leap (prove one’s man-
hood demonstrate whisper secrets
a daze of new icons reconstructed
in unforseen though shady places
