Lyubomir Nikolov
Apples
The apples have fallen and rot in the yard.
And you aren’t here.
Otherwise, everything else goes on as before.
The cricket creaks in the dry grass.
The window pane is shattered.
The stone has fallen by the bed.
Shards of glass cover the pillow.
I’m the master of the empty house.
I enter the bedrooms, lie on the beds,
Caress the heavy dressers full of linen,
I smell the perfumes
And in the white sheets bury my beard.
Having removed the mirror from the wall
I wander about the house
Watching how the mirrors from the other rooms
Peer into it:
The pink vases, the blue duck in the bathtub.
I swig Barbados rum straight from the bottle.
I open the windows
Slowly, one by one, I set fire to the curtains.
Come. You’ll easily recognize
The red house, up there on the hill in Highland.
It’s ablaze.
And you aren’t here.
Otherwise, everything else goes on as before.
The cricket creaks in the dry grass.
The window pane is shattered.
The stone has fallen by the bed.
Shards of glass cover the pillow.
I’m the master of the empty house.
I enter the bedrooms, lie on the beds,
Caress the heavy dressers full of linen,
I smell the perfumes
And in the white sheets bury my beard.
Having removed the mirror from the wall
I wander about the house
Watching how the mirrors from the other rooms
Peer into it:
The pink vases, the blue duck in the bathtub.
I swig Barbados rum straight from the bottle.
I open the windows
Slowly, one by one, I set fire to the curtains.
Come. You’ll easily recognize
The red house, up there on the hill in Highland.
It’s ablaze.
Translated by Miroslav Nikolov
Page(s) 37
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