there is no
chance in the
bosnian family
only allah
only inshallah
and only
ako bog da
ako bog da
there will be
no firing squad
but a car
with petrol
and no one
will notice
you slip
away
inshallah
you will find
safety in a
stranger’s house
and you will
not know
what it is
he does
to you
allahu ’akbar
you’ll whisper
in the camp
where they
come for
your mother
and she is
clench jaw
and follow
allahimanet
when your
mother takes
your hand
bears the
weight of
your sister
across a
minefield
alhamdulillah
that you
are not
another dead
girl another
raped girl
another body
in a mass
grave
there is no
god in the
australian family
only luck
only courage
only white
knuckles
still my mother
bends to her
prayer mat
tells me
alhamdulillah
and I say
thank god
for what
Dženana Vucic is a Bosnian-Australian writer and editor currently based in Glasgow. She’s a commissioning and copy editor for The Lifted Brow and former Associate Editor for Arts, Culture and Books at In Review. She’s been published in Going Down Swinging, Australian Poetry Journal, Film Focus, Dialect, Lip Magazine and Junkee.com. She has poetry upcoming in Rabbit and the Australian Multilingual Writing Project.
