Yellow Book.

Lleshanaku, Luljeta

Yellow Book

   In times without truth there are no taboos.
   Maybe this yellow book is one of a few that survived,
   although the act of hiding it
   lives on in our minds.

   In the scorching heat, dinner is served clumsily every night
   at the same hour, the hour when light and dark cover us equally.
   Something is quickly cooked; a calf's head perhaps, of which I'll
      get the tongue.
   They say that if you eat it, your tongue will grow,
   and if you eat the eyes you will be a sharpshooter,
   and if you eat books you will eat yourself,
   little by little, from the edges to the center
   like tractors harvesting at collective farms.

   From the head of the table, the head of the family
   caresses his warts while lecturing on evolution:
   "The strongest die, the weakest survive."

   Nothing distinguishes this from a holy dinner
   where food and wine are portioned out equally--
   only the truth is read secretly
   by the mystified, sharing it
   like a yellow book.