Combat boots trample gritty sidewalk weeds
Lilacs bloom against monuments and walls
Legs brush leaves brush glass brush stone
We live amid heaps of ancient and modern
Encounter sideways stares and tough guy glares
Where Preservation and Ruin push and pull
Our mother tongue mixes with others on the train
Headscarves next to headphones next to yarmulkes
Groceries and long coats and prams sway and move
It’s a city that calls to immigrants, transients
Welcome foreigner, we are instantly one
We were shocked to learn home can be so free
We hit the streets, learn to protest to a beat
We dance and scream and make love
We fight for each other even without having met
And rest at clubs in spas in parks
Lay in the grass watching ravens swoop
A sea of green and blue surrounded by stone
We are the city that breathes, beats
We never give up or give in
It’s a war, but we’re at peace
by Veronica Zora Kirin
Veronica Zora Kirin is a queer Croatian/American writer currently living in Berlin. She is the author of “Stories of Elders,” documenting the high-tech revolution as lived by the Greatest Generation, which received the National Indie Excellence Award and was a finalist for the International Book Award. Her short stories, poetry, and essays have been published in the New Feather Anthology, Unburied Anthology, Scare Street, Scars, and elsewhere. She is currently working on her debut novel. Read more at https://veronicakirin.com/books
