Flashback 1.

Lleshanaku, Luljeta

Flashback 1

   In the sweltering August of 1972
   the napes of the movers' necks look green
   as they load furniture onto a truck.
   "Watch out! Don't step on the flowers!" my mother warns.
   The flowers would wither three days later....
   The house empties out as if by X-ray
   and the neighbors' compassion
   melts away, an ice compress
   held against a wound.

   We move somewhere else,
   where gratitude instills itself like balconies on faces
   and adventure is fixed on a stick
   like a rooster-shaped lollipop.

   I am only three. I do not know what promises are
   and no one tells me
   that a childhood without promises is bread
   without yeast, still sweet yet tough and dry.

   My father cannot be seen anywhere
   for my father has not yet been born.
   He will be born in another chapter
   much later
   when I begin to feel the need to become someone's protector
   a little shadow growing slowly between my legs
   like a microphone stand.