Song in a Spirit of Love

I was a bat in the night
In your bareness I covered you
With my great wings.

I was a bat,
A vampire in the night
In your bareness
I sucked your seething blood
From the beauty of your brittle body.

A blind bat in the night
I will not sever the white, white estrangement
From this song in a spirit of love.

[Këngë me frymë dashurie, from the volume Të qenët të mosqenë, Prishtina: Rilindja, 1990, p. 41. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]