The English Association - over 100 years at the forefront of English

 

Confined to bed, sheets sticking
like shrink wrap to my fevered skin.
The sun seeps through the curtains.

 

The sweet sharpness of peppers, hung in chains outside
to make ajvar, or kiseli paprika

and keep us the whole winter, fills the room.

 

Mushrooms are drying on the straw
and my mother’s voice rises from the thick walled kitchen.
She brews clear broth to raise me to health.

 

I know you’re dead. I know this country
doesn’t even exist today,
yet the smell of fresh linen and rakija

 

rubbed onto my boyish breast
enwraps me more convincingly
than this land or the fat duvet that weigh upon me now;

 

Baba putting wet oats in my socks
to take away the fever,
and you, scolding her home-spun remedies.

 

I feel my mother’s hand, warm and dry,
passing across my fevered forehead
and know all will be well.