Ben Sonnenberg

Jean Stein

Once Again about My Father

Author(s): Luljeta Lleshanaku, Albana Lleshanaku and Henry Israeli
Source: Grand Street, No. 64, Memory (Spring, 1998), p. 213
Published by: Jean Stein
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25008320
Accessed: 27-06-2016 03:00 UTC

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Grand Street

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 Once Again About My Father

LULJ ETA LLESHANAKU
Forgive me, father, for writing this poem
that sounds like the creak ofa door
against a pile of rags
in a room with cobwebs in its armpits
a cold so bitter that it stops your blood.

The same old black and white television

deformed images in its chest
the same old threadbare bedspread
like the face of a menopausal woman.
Next to a lamp, Adam's shriveled apple,
a hunger in your washed-out eyes.

You remember to ask me about something

when a toothpick snaps between your teeth.

I know how it is with you now, father:

by now you are content with loneliness
its corpse in minus four degrees centigrade
its aluminum siding
its brace of dust
its calm sterility, infinitely white.

Translated from the Albanian by Albana Lleshanaku and Henry Israeli

213

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