
Two photographs
I showered
I dusted
I am without illusions
I’ve left me alone
Dust settles
taking up yesterday’s space
What is yesterday in a poem
What is beauty but sun
for the common is often lovely and unpraised
Someone slept here the night before
Change those pillowcases and sleep opposite, feet to head
At the end of her life, she yelled
Turn me! Turn me!
She says the sunrise means no thing.
Night and day: turn me! turn me!
Now I wear this gold
all this gold on my wrist
all this gold on my ears
all this gold on my fingers
The sunrise—
it doesn't capture a thing.
Your name is dearer to me
than what is perfectly true
so I call out from under here.
Don’t learn more words he says.
This summer he died and the summer after she followed.
We were translating a transcript from the other bed:
Përzhitje digestion
Përzjerje mixture
Ngatëresë mess
Djersë e mëditsve ne fabrik sweat of the factory workers
Për në salle të kinemasë in the cinema
Vari / Vargë / Vargje Grave / Range / Verse
The actor forgets his role
His eyes closed under the shower
of a Mexican hotel
End
Burgë, fabrikë ose Meksikë
Përndjekje—e kopton perndjekjen? The thing which comes after the other thing
End
Either follows or chases
What is the difference?
Chasing is faster than following
Xhelatë jetimorësh the man who beats orphans
the fascist fiancée
Gjini federuar [ ]
Per jetë a vdekje For Life or death
Death or life
Ask your uncle
What time is it? 11:30
Bring me the second half so I won’t be hungry
for dinner
As long as we have strength we continue
I told her to eat to be strong, but this word also means power where I’m from
and power looks upon life blindly.
I will never see her sitting there again I say,
but who am I and what’s there?
In one photograph,
I'm on your breast having eaten
tugging slightly on his shirt
your hand on my knee,
crooked smile
eyebrows ribbons.
You took pride in your appearance
I can't imagine you in this room now
but there is a desk against the door.
In another,
hand slightly tucked into coat jacket,
rolling your tongue along the sides of your mouth,
you didn't listen to music
I don't know if you liked it
I never asked you though
I don't regret it
I feel all your knowledge inside me
but what to do with it?
I heard water has perfect memory
across sky, sea, body.
It rained 14 days straight
then one week of sun before you went.
I never was so wet
nor so elegant,
never did I suffer a grief so round:
I lost my childhood
you lost your death.