Pumpkin Pie by Marina Zrnic©

 I cannot forget the burnt and yellow smell

of the autumn in Belgrade

when we drank our coffees in forgotten coffee shops,

talked about the pumpkin pie.

 

We spent more than a decade together,

drinking some good and some bad wine.

Many broken nights were glued just by our starry smile.

 

All those years seem to me scrambled in October.

You stayed as the most important one.

 

There was that thick city smoke we inhaled.

My feet all purple because of the cold.

You never wanted to buy a decent jacket, so I gave you mine.

 

We moved all around the city in the tram

while the nutcase Danube whirled 

all our doubts and has never spat them out.

I remember you once said

how it did not matter,

how we could try our lives somewhere else.

You got lost on the other side world.

The planet started turning the autumn upside down.

I got lost and could never find myself on the ground.

My feet lose their temper when there is no autumn around.

 

I remember the flat in Belgrade and how time seemed to slow down.

There was that dead bird and our healthy lung sound.

We ate those years like some hot, mashed pumpkin from the ground.

I cannot believe that one whole decade and all Belgrade winds

could fit in just one autumn pumpkin pie.