4.

first I dreamed up a girl
a stranger
she looked so familiar
I have embarked on my path, she said
and set out straight through the patchwork of bushes and grass
this isn’t a path, the others yelled out
in the woods you’ll find jackals, abysses, and vipers
follow the trodden path
the girl did not so much as turn around
this is my path I grasped the direction
she continued walking through goose-skinned blackberries
as if they were wire fences
it’s not that scary
she called out
here you’ll find poppies birds deer aspen

besides
anything could be your path
anything could be your path
in fact direction is a path

5.

then
I saw a pregnant woman
panting, surmounting the ninth month
31
the steepest hill in life
folded in a yoga position
sucking on a thumb
swimming in the sea that is her dark womb
is a little wrinkled old man with unseeing eyes
set above a little turtle of a neck
and a blossoming belly button
the soft spot on top of his mucous head is shining
pulsing
opened up, the gorgeous rose is
full of life
not much time left till
he loses the answers
his wisdom is the burden
to be forsaken at birth.

after that
he’ll cry out for the first time

[…]

-Kerana Angelova
translated from the Bulgarian
by Zoya Marincheva