I had only half-opened one of the window’s wings
Ovid, Amores
High over our bed, a wasp.
And this slim Egyptian queen
is dancing in the hot air,
spinning, vibrating in a sunbeam,
whizzing between the curtains, swooping,
circling the downy quince,
then rising again, buzzing, drifting on air,
and tracing yellow circles around the quince,
till all of a sudden the head thrusts deep
into the fruit’s tunnel.
The whole body wants to squeeze into it…
Wants to get wings and sting and all
into the darkness.
To suck tart juice with the proboscis
and, sunk into the damp womb,
to dart in it like lightning,
to reach as far down as the oozy pip,
that we might hear it booming
like the Deluge with its awesome waves, and later
erupting from the darkness a limpid drop
will moisten the flattened down.
Translated with Viara Tcholakova
From the hollowed heads of sunflowers
my father has made a bonfire in the garden.
And hornets, having smelt the sun,
come down upon him in their angry swarms.
He wants victory over them.
The fire keeps growing, licking the stars,
the monsters beat their wings of darkness
and the flames sting their bellies.
Some of them, almost burnt, must drag
their smoking, wingless bodies through the grass,
expiring on the damp covers
in damp sheets of dew.
Their wicked seed is wiped out almost.
My father gleefully rubs his hands
but from time to time a bee flits by
to be lost in the flames forever:
one small bee less to return to the hive…
Until morning, my father will toss in fever.
When the sun crawls up out of the earth –
the burning body of a bee.
Translated with Viara Tcholakova
Slowly the knife’s grown over with blood and scales.
I grasp it tight, I flay
and try not to meet the eyes
of these mute creatures.
I flay just as I’d shave
pig’s skin – against the bristle.
I take off the golden armour
to see their shining bodies underneath –
sleek, soft, naked.
They fly about me like wet chaff,
coating my face and shoes.
And I remember an old ikon:
the dry gully, the two butterflies,
the dragon
pinned to the ground by St George’s lance,
the small dog with the pink tongue
licking the dark clots.
Beside me, a bowl of flour –
I dredge the fish in it.
Through their white shirts
break blue ribs of blood.
It’s noon.
And the oil’s already boiling.
Translated with the poet
Blood glistens on the knife.
The lamb hangs flayed, its hide
an inch off. Over it,
cherry blossoms. Wasps.
Initiate so soon
into death’s mystery.
Now from its severed head
an angel’s eye regards us.
Translated with Viara Tcholakova