A poem by Dostena Anguelova translated from the Bulgarian by Holly Karapetkova.
I go back to the time
when we made love
to tell you everything.
I don’t understand the final
coldness
I don’t understand
the signs of distress—
birds hanging in the net
of my fiendish appetite.
I don’t understand
my desire
catching fire from your spite,
or your fear
suddenly lit up like a benediction.
But I remember
the gleam of the eye
that saw you unclothed,
the first innocence.
I was your prisoner
and now here I am free,
returning in our wrinkled sheets,
resolved to hammer in a flag
like an explorer on the North Pole:
The furthest reaches of humankind!
And then the signs are erased
like the crossword puzzle
of our footprints
in the snow.