A grain of lentils from the neighborhood
explained on the loudspeaker
that I actually
didn't even know how to write poetry
and that my professors were patrons.

The hollow grain made a drama out of nothing
and scratched the cheeks of my composure.
His chase was a boiling cauldron.
I stopped respecting the damned grain of lentils,
because it hated me anyway.

His Balkans and the foreign Europe,
could not possibly meet
at the carnival of manners.
I sat behind the microphone,
and the grain settled in the
shoe factory.
That grain of lentils worked against me,
that grain of lentils worked against itself.

Sanja Atanasovska, North Macedonia