You’ve only seen the photo/face of your father [before]: that is until

You arrive, thinking sickened/churning

octopus all day. Dead tentacles

Ferment fruit beneath the waves: brandy

                                                 Na urchins na concrete slabs.

                                                 Spine yourself to paradise before you swallow all the rocks.

Shatterbelt coast where

You wash your hair/listen to Jugo rock.

An open window yields a stranger’s showering song: a Billboard top 10 from some year.

Past the dagala condemned;

The slow tap of ocean you/pull

                                                Retreat like fennel cooked down.

Ja sam tebe jako volio.

A grandmother’s eyes set between young bone—

                                                 Today is a dead end.

                                                 (Tomorrow, a circle)

*Footnotes: translations

Na: onto                
Jugo: Shortening of Croatian spelling of Yugoslavia
Dagala: A café bar in Komoševa, set to re-open at some point
Ja sam tebe jako volio: I have always loved you

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