They cornered him to the wall,
shoved blows on him so hard his bones cracked
like a rattle, he became the wall.
They threw straw at him as if he was some horse
but the straw was poisonous
and he couldn’t move away from the wall.

He grabbed a piece of coal
and begun to draw on rock's face
his father and mother and his little sister
and their dog,
all whom they killed
the day he went out to get some flowers
in the mountains for his sister’s birthday;

then he drew himself, a body trapped,
but a body whirling free inside itself,
and the wall started to burn, to explode
like a thousand tiny fire rocks
as he breathed looking at his freed hands.

Ani Gjika