On a visit to Sarajevo
Me finishing my sandwich
Is Franz Ferdinand's last wish.
This very quickly is the story how
Slack arms make the man look taller.
In the four years I spent in prison
Following that moment, I often thought about
My mother's home in Tuzla.
A house built out of rubble.
Wars are like the weather.
One fine day a gun goes off, the clouds of heaven open;
The horizon sinks into a trench.
They pull my arms behind my back
As if to break them off.
© 2006 Richard Norman
has published poems in such journals as The Fiddlehead, The Antigonish Review, and Pittsburgh Quarterly. He lives in South Korea, where he is working on his first poetry collection.
