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TATJANA LUKIC


for those who follow your code

And on a jury let there be neither kinsmen nor enemies

Tsar Dusan's Code, 1349


i am asking for clemency dear tsar
for those who follow your code
and who punish believers in mary
a fallen angel
born of a goose

for those who asked my friend
to kiss the cross and sign she was not
what she was, before they helped her to leave
a burning town and run across the river

for priests who turned my mother away
and closed the church doors behind her
when she fell in love with a pagan stranger

i am asking for clemency dear tsar
for those who refuse to bury
two lovers next to each other
if they believed in different gods

for all parents talking at their dinner table
about them and us

and for you
for your deeds dear tsar
i am asking the lord you trust

to forgive you for being harsh with babuni
and with other wild folk refusing to line up
and cheer along your mighty path