Petar Tchouhov

Photo by Yasin Alsbey

[Are you sleeping?]

“Are you sleeping?”
God asked me.

“No,” I answered.
“Are you?”

“I was asleep,
but I woke up.
I had a terrible nightmare–
that there’s no God.”

[I just want to know]

“I just want to know
that you love me!”
I told God.

“This won’t help you,”
He answered.
“You need someone
that you
love.”

[How do you write]

“How do you write
a happy poem?”
I asked God.

“Don’t write it,” He said,
“and it
will be happy.”

[You’ve been walking]

You’ve been walking
on a mirror all your life,
but you think you’re walking
on water.

Break Up

Should we break up?
Okay.
But let it be
through the middle.
And then
you take
my left half,
I will take
yours,
so that
your heart
will finally
be mine.

PETAR TCHOUHOV was born on June 23rd, 1961, in Sofia, Bulgaria. He is the author of 17 collections of poetry, a novel, two collections of short stories, a play, and a children’s book, as well as a musician who often incorporates some of his poems in rock songs together with his bands. His works have been translated into more than 25 languages and included in many newspapers, journals, and anthologies in Bulgaria and abroad. He is the winner of the top prize at the 61st Basho Festival in Japan and many others. Petar has performed his writing and music at festivals and other events in Japan, the USA, Russia, Ukraine, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, Hungary, Croatia, Lithuania, Turkey, Morocco, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Albania, Montenegro, and North Macedonia. He is a member of the Bulgarian PEN Center’s Management Board, the Association of Bulgarian Writers, the Sofia Haiku Club, the Haiku Society of America, the World Haiku Association, and Musicautor. He works for the Sofia City Library as head of the library’s Literary Club.

About the Translator:

CLINT MARGRAVE is the author of the poetry collections Salute the Wreckage, The Early Death of Men, and most recently, Visitor, all from NYQ Books. He is also the author of the novel Lying Bastard and editor of Requiem for the Toad: Selected Poems of Gerald Locklin (NYQ Books). His work has appeared in The Threepenny Review, The Sun, Rattle, and B O D Y, among others. In 2024-2025, he served as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar to Bulgaria, living in Sofia, and teaching creative writing at Sofia University. He currently lives in Long Beach, California, and teaches at California State University, Long Beach. Clint Margrave has contributed to B O D Y since 2022 and is our guest editor for our 2025 Fall Issue.