Michael Mintrom: What’s Hidden Inside

What’s Hidden Inside
A Serbian Australian imprisoned in Croatia for war crimes

1.

This boatshed doubles as a hideaway.

I look toward the weathered jetty,

The ketch tethered against it. The sun’s

Just set. In the last light, seagulls

Circle, diving at fish scraps tossed

From a launch heading out. The bed where I rest

Has a blue throw, soft pillows, clean sheets.

Close by, a sea chest holds whiskey, dried fruit,

A Swiss Army knife. Good as this is,

I sense what’s to come with the morning tide.

2.

The night cinema. I’m inside a castle

With high stone walls. The gates are locked.

It’s the orphanage of my childhood.

The matron threatens me with a beating.

Fearful, I scale a leather belt stretched

Above her cauldron. In the next scene, my bed’s

Blood-soaked. Babies, dead, naked,

Cleanly gutted, surround me. Soldiers appear,

Old men with black rifles and red berets.

I gesture and ask: “Could we have done this?”

3.

All through the former Yugoslavia,

Borders were complicated. Maps worked

Like brain scans, highlighting trouble.

In the wars, everything was personal,

Everything political. My wits kept me

Moving, country to country, alone.

Drifter, soldier, builder of boats, war hero—

I played them all, navigating the coasts

Where sanity descends to madness.

When I shut my eyes, prisons disappear.

Michael Mintrom