From the poetry collection From Sarajevo with Sorrow, translated by Amela Simic and published by Biblioasis in 2005.

My beautiful old ones are disappearingslowly. They simply leave,without rules, without a farewell.They stoop down to reach a clothes-pegand turn into earth.Just for a day, their namesinvade a modest space in the morning paperand then withdraw before news of the war.They leave behind their diaries, their letters, and new suitsreadied for their funerals long ago. They passlike a breeze through the curtains of an abandoned apartment.And we forget their names.Like that of the retired captain from the ground floorwe spent half the day burying because the graveyardwas shelled so heavily we had to hide in his grave.For three years, he wrote letters to an imaginary sonand piled them in a shoebox.Like that of a former employee of a former bankwhose diaries I bought from some refugee children just beforethey started to make paper airplanes.They were written in invisible ink.Like that of my neighbour whose whole family had beenmassacred in his village,who had given me the battery radiohe always had with himbefore we carried him out of the basement.He had never bought batteries or tried to switch it on.It is snowing outside. Just like last year.Surrounded by keepsakes whose meanings left with the old people,I try to decipher sorrow’s secret handwriting, that message which allows asnowman to watcha sunrise with indifference.Or have I already deciphered the message?Why else would I have forgottento switch on the radio at a time when the news from the frontthreatened to overpower my needfor letters to nobody, and diaries in which nothing is written? While it is snowing outside. Just like last year.