Ilija Jovanović’s poem, published in Gurbet Romani and in German, conveys the voice of a first-person narrator speaking to a ‘foreigner/stranger’ who holds a bundle that gathers all his possessions. The narrator sarcastically addresses the stranger in the informal second-person form. The ‘foreigner/stranger’ is waiting in vain for clemency from the authorities, the narrator states, and cannot expect to belong here because he is no citizen of the country. By the end of the poem, the ‘foreigner/stranger’ has morphed into a bundle himself in the narrator’s eyes. In the same way that the ‘stranger/foreigner’ is not allowed to unfold and unpack his bundle, he should also not expect to take up roots in this place where he does not belong.

The poem depicts sentiments of rejection that anyone who is forced to move, migrate, immigrate, or emigrate from one place to another might encounter.