Katerina Stoykova

8^th Floor Balcony Ghazal

 

 

If I catch you smoking

I’ll throw you off the balcony.

 

If something happens to you

I’ll jump off the balcony.

 

Dad stopped hitting me: Go ahead, he laughed, scream for help.

Then opened the door to the balcony.

 

To free space in the kitchen,

we moved the stove to the balcony.

 

Dad got mad and started

dragging Mom towards the balcony.

  

You could see the sun rise

out of the Black Sea from the balcony.

 

When the guests for Mom’s funeral arrived,

Dad hid smoking on the balcony.

 

I hated him in the house,

as well as on the balcony.

 

I’ve been faking all my orgasms,

I confessed to my first ex-husband on the balcony.

 

I stared out for a month, waiting for my penpal to arrive

while washing the windows on the balcony.

 

Your marriage will last at most three years,

Dad told me on the balcony.

 

When I was leaving for America, I looked up from the cab and saw

my best friend waving from the balcony.

 

I’m ready to let go of everything that happened

except the balcony.

 

Dear One, there is no heaven or hell,

there is just this balcony.

 

 

Black Stone Over White Stone

 

After Cesar Vallejo

 

I will die in Bourgas, under the pouring rain

that falls once a year

or two, whenever I can visit.

I will die on the eighth-floor balcony, at sunrise

as the sky tugs the sun’s soul out

of the Black Sea shimmer.

 

It will be a Friday, as it is today,

because as I write these lines, I notice

how the work week ends and how

I crawl into another

pile – unfinished business.

 

Katerina died – during her visit.

Whoever is returning to Kentucky

isn’t she, believe me. Determined

to remain unnoticed, this person mirrors

her disappearing foreign bones completely.

 

The only witnesses remain

the balcony, the rain,

the constant resurrections.

 

 

Visit

 

I visit my homeland the way a snail tries

to fit back into his old shell.

Day after day I writhe inside, 

counterclockwise.

 

The shell is rough and narrow, opens sores

on coddled parts.

 

But I persist, eat tarator, cry over graves,

until I conform to my old contours. Finally,

I am here.

 

Snailis the most beautiful Bulgarian word,

says my son, who is studying the language.

I thought it meant love.

 

 

Better

            for Toni

 

The time I left

my best friend behind

 

was a time of hope

for something better

 

than a best friend,

 

was a time of hope

for true love,

 

was a time of hope

for a better life, better

 

than a best friend,

better than her

 

true love, better

 

than a life

with my best friend, better

 

than holding hands

on busted streets, better

 

than sharing

the cheapest ice cream, better

 

than her lithe body spooning mine

in the hotel room by the U.S. consulate, better

 

than our unconditional love

unless I find

 

something better.

 

The time I left

my best friend behind,

 

there were parts of me

I left her. I left her.

 

 

Two

            Based on Bulgarian and American adages

 

Two sharp stones can’t

            mill flour.

 

Two sharp bones can’t

            make a joint.

 

Two stones can break

            most bones.

 

You can kill two birds

            with one stone

 

or the same bird twice

            with words.