So high up for the first time,
where no fly has ever flown,
and where, if it weren’t for you,
nobody would’ve believed

how innocently you crawl
as if on a casement window
with a view of a forbidden garden,
and perhaps you remember

blackberry jam with cream
and other earthly delights
from your short-lived childhood:
blossoming plums, white acacia,

the buzz in the lazy afternoon
over the old man’s casket,
when you could still hear
the echo from your own flight

and were important enough
to be squashed on the table.
Now you move much faster
than ever; in a single season

you cover several continents
and your chaotic trajectories
are straightened up as direct routes
from point A to point B;

the eyes, those multi-faceted
rubies in the head’s treasury,
are polished to the core
like smooth Plexiglas,

out of which the view
remains one and the same:
an endless sky, dotted by clouds,
incomprehensible road webs.

Which one of your ancestors
has imagined a future like this:
a foldable tray stacked
with vacuumed junk food
and you, inconsolable,
gaunt, with your back turned
to all that, take a sip
from your coffee with sugar,

and again you cling with your feet
to your oval window,
which, trust me, will never
fling open for you.

Little insect with a frail proboscis
and useless, crystal wings—
even Jonah hasn’t felt so lonesome
in the belly of the whale,

and if the plane accidentally
dropped in the middle of the ocean,
only your three-lettered body
would not be flown home.

-Dimiter Kenarov,
translated from Bulgarian by the author
The Season of Delicate Hunger
(Accents Publishing)