You are beautiful

You are beautiful, girl,
But love between us
Is impossible
Because, just between the two of us,
I once loved your mother
Who was beautiful, like you.

[Ti je e bukur, from the volume Këngë arbereshe, Tirana: Naim Frashëri 1982, p. 93, translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie, and first published in English in An elusive eagle soars, anthology of modern Albanian poetry, London: Forest Books 1993, p. 60]