The streetsweepers of Prishtina
(Larësit e Prishtinës)

Who could know the town better
With the sandalled feet of children
On tank tracks

With the mouths of little boys
Drinking water
From teargas cartridges
Who could know the town better
Than those who wash it at night
And cannot cleanse its wounds

No one
More than the clotted veins
Which turn pale in the morning
In the eternally busy vaults
Of Europe’s morgue