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      August 19, 2022Pedestrian Bridge over the Train Tracks in Brčko, BiHMilica Mijatović

      I don’t know when the bridge was built,
      or when the trains stopped running, or which
      side of the tracks was ours & which theirs,
      or why they painted the bridge turquoise,
      or why war is obsessed with lines, or who
      graffitied one of the bridge railings
      with “Teška vremena, prijatelju,” or why
      some cement steps are missing, or how.
      But I know the tracks are a line, the war
      a blur, the bridge a truth. I know the way
      home is quickest across the tracks. I know
      as kids we never went that way alone.
      But one day the bridge became our meeting
      place, our common ground, and we’d sit, you
      with your name & me with mine. I’d say
      This place makes me forget to be someone, and
      you’d look at me bewildered—All this place does
      is make me be someone. We were both stuck
      adhering to lines drawn on our knuckles,
      clenching our fists at the imaginary rumbling
      of some train coming to prove us wrong.

      from #76 - Summer 2022

      Milica Mijatović

      “I come from Brčko, Bosnia and Hercegovina, but I live in the United States and have for quite a while. I’ve been writing and translating poetry since I was a little girl. I love everything about poetry, and every day I try to expose more of my world to poetry.”