Shaving after work? What for?
It reminds me of my father
a long time ago
standing before a mirror, cracked as
corn grits cooked without fat.
He went on shaving at that hour
a razor sliding up and down
clearing a path from temple to chin
like the words of an apostle
and as his tongue twisted like a snail
emptying one cheek and filling the other
his words rebounded from the glass:
‘The power of a man, my son,
is measured by the things he doesn't do.
Passion should be kept hidden, like a turnip!'

It was as if breaking a rule, almost blasphemy
when I, years later,
early in the morning, before doing any housework
started shaving my own ‘thorn bush'
using my father's razor.

When my hand trembled, I called out to God.
It wasn't difficult. It was like searching for a barber
in a familiar neighbourhood.
God is not used to saying, ‘What can I do for you, young man?'
The cross is older than man.

Here I am, without a single cut
my neck lit up as if by an internal lamp.
‘A clean shave,' my dad always said,
my dad whose eyes at death -
his face unshaven for days
looking like a swarm of ants
trying to lift a grain of wheat -
caved in like the crumpled napkin of a child
made to leave the table
still hungry.

Translated from Albanian: Henry Israeli