translated by Lynn Levin

You will close your eyes and you will ask me:
"Who am I?"

I will reply:
"You are the fox."

You will open your eyes, a bit surprised, a little hurt:
"The fox? How so?"

"Because I caught you in a hundred traps coming here,
And you, discovering them, outwitted them all;
As lovely, as wild as the fox,
You enter and leave through my eyes as though
    they were two tunnels from your den
And I don't know which one to choose to keep you
    inside, to make you mine."

You will ask me again:
"If I suddenly changed into a gentle dove, would you love me?"

To tell the truth, I wouldn't know how to answer you.


The Forest: Poems by Besnik Mustafaj,
tr. Lynn Levin. Chattanooga, Tennessee: PM Publications Chapbooks.

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An Anthology of Translations