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Elizabeta Bakovska, from Six Macedonian Poets

The Persian Bride

You speak to me in a language I don't understand.
Your eyes, a blue we don't have,
called me out of the many
pale women's faces there in Susa.
Thirty-three scars I counted
on your body the night
you made me your bride.
But I was promised to another.
His chest was pierced
by the same hand that gently caressed me,
his dead body was spat on
by the same lips that kissed me.
So what if you are a better lover than him,
so what if you've left inside me
enough semen for a new army?
You speak to me in a language I don't understand.
I cursed you the same morning,
with the heaviest curses that I knew:
may they devour your country as they did mine,
may they promise you power, and make you a slave,
may they speak of peace, and bring nothing but war,
may they annihilate you, may you have no place to complain,
may they despise you and destroy everything that's yours,
may you be gone, as I am gone now,
oh man of Macedonia.