Flea Market
Monday,
7pm.
A little red dress
is draped on the railing
of Luvov Bridge.
The dress’s owner—
a woman of a certain age—
sits five meters away
and observes, with some detachment,
to see if there is interest
in her memories.
There isn’t.
Family Photo
She’s twenty-two,
he—twenty-five.
They look as though
the photographer
is making them uncomfortable.
Perhaps they’re holding hands
for the photo,
but that’s not visible
in the frame.
Fifty years ago
people smiled
only with the corners of their mouths,
but there is nobody to read
these signs now.
The heirs have rented out
the house along with the portrait above the bed.
“What are we going to do with these two?”
asks one of the tenants,
and the rest have nothing to say.
Besides, what’s the problem—
he’s been gone fifteen years,
she—three.
The photo simply covers
a white stain on the wall.
Later the tenants wrestle
with shadows awhile until
finally, to hide the stain,
they slap on a landscape.
Perhaps Rome.
At least Rome is eternal.
Monday Morning
Running late
on his way to work,
he jaywalks, and there,
on the median
a roar of a distant siren
catches up with him.
He looks around for
a fire, a tragedy, police,
so early on a Monday morning
when the world seems
a brittle and fragile place.
The scream of the siren
rubs against his legs like a dog,
and for a couple of seconds
he is able to distinguish
through the frosted windows
of the ambulance
the silhouettes of people
with their heads bowed.
Then everything ends suddenly –
the roar gradually dies out,
it’s Monday again,
and he is standing on the median,
needing time to remember
who he is
and why the hurry.
Bukhara
Do you know
where ancient Bukhara is?
Muslims’ fourth holiest city
after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem?
Here,
in Central Asia,
enclosed by desert
on three sides,
the city resembles a mirage—
madrasas and sand-colored
fortress walls,
people walking,
squinting against the wind,
and wind
that lifts women’s dresses
very high.
They say
that’s how cities survive.
OLYA STOYANOVA is a poet, writer, and playwright based in Sofia, Bulgaria. She is interested in the relationship between poetry and science; nonfiction writing and social problems; dramaturgy and women’s point of view. Olya is the author of five poetry collections, a novel, two short story collections and three non-fiction books. Her last poetry book, “Street Happiness”, won two national awards for the best poetry book of the year 2013 – “Ivan Nikolov” and “Nikolay Kunchev”. She won twice the National Award Askeer for the Best Dramatic Text of the Year 2014 and 2018 for the plays ‘Invitation to dinner’ and ‘The Color of Deep Waters’. Currently on stage are her plays “Invitation to Dinner” (Sofia Theatre, 2014), “The Color of Deep Waters” (Ivan Vazov National Theatre, 2017), as well as “Fear of Taming” (Ivan Vazov National Theatre, 2020). Olya Stoyanova is the Editor in Chief at Bulgarian National Radio, Channel for Culture, Science and Education, Hristo Botev, and a Lecturer at the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication in Sofia University.
About the Translator:
KATERINA STOYKOVA, a Bulgarian by birth, is a bilingual poet living in Kentucky. She is the author of Between a Bird Cage and a Bird House (University Press of Kentucky, 2024) and The Poet’s Guide to Publishing: How to Conceive, Arrange, Edit, Publish and Market a Book of Poetry (McFarland, 2024). Katerina is the founder and senior editor of Accents Publishing, as well as the creator of the Accents podcast on WUKY. Katerina served as the 2023-2024 Director of the Kentucky Book Festival, as well as the Director for the Center for the Book in Kentucky, and is the 2025-2026 President of the Kentucky State Poetry Society.