It's not time for Poem by Luljeta Lleshanaku

It's not time for a change.
For as long as I can remember
it's never been time for a change.

The house dampens. Perhaps everything is a forgery:
the wild pears, wedding rings, the milk van,
the children faltering like a tailor's pins
in an unfinished jacket
awaiting another try.

Passed from generation to generation, like haemophilia,
change is carried by the male chromosome.
You can recognise these men by their profiles -
like Caesar's face, a laurel on his head,
staring into the failure,
stamped forever on Roman coins.

Women, on the other hand,
never forget to turn on the veranda light late in the evening,
the bulb covered in mosquitoes,
believing that in spite of what they do,
what is written, will happen.

Translated from Albanian: Henry Israeli