Portrait of a Blood Killing Pardoned

Firstly they had to buy him shoes
That he could cross the threshold of his house.

Almost ready to kill himself
When he did not know his shoe size,

He had not worn shoes for a thousand years,
Bursting, he uttered: give me a size 1990.

They measured and assessed him and said:
Off with you now, avenger,

Eat crow on that muddy road
All the way to Vranjevc, on foot

Right from the start.

[Portret gjaksi të falur, from the volume Frutat bizare, Prishtina: Rilindja 1996, p. 38. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]