Via Politica
Translated By Ani Gjika
I grew up in a big house
where weakness and expressions of joy
deserved punishment.
And I was raised on the via politica
with the grease of yesterday’s glories,
a thick grease collected under arctic skies.
I was lit up. My notebooks, my hair, my heart reeked of
smoke.
That’s when we saw each other clearly.
Or rather, what remained of us.
Damaged like lottery numbers
scratched away with a blade.
How different we were!
Those with round faces were righteous;
those with narrow faces were cautious.
One listened secretly to Puccini,
another to silence, the music’s music.
The oldest one declaimed monologues
inside a ten-by-ten-foot cell
he had built for himself.
And the mysterious one
simply had diabetes.
But how similar we were in severe circumstances!
Alarmed like a flock of magpies
that the smallest stone sends into the sky
toward the mouth of the abyss.
Then it became obvious there wasn’t enough space for everyone.
We separated. Some went on living in via verbum,
telling of what they knew, what they witnessed,
and so, through their narrative,
creating their own grease.
The others crossed over the ocean.
And those in particular who went farthest away
never speak of their annoying history
of wretched survival, burying it
in the darkest crevices on their being.
Unfortunately, as with perfume, its scent
lingers there for much, much longer.
Copyright Credit: Luljeta Lleshanku, "Via Politica" from Negative Space. Copyright © 2012, 2015 by Luljeta Lleshanku. Translation copyright © 2018 by Ani Gjika. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.