by Kristin Dimitrova
I crossed the street
to enter a secret shop
where hundreds of hands grind time.
Charted small faces leave aside their arguments
about missing moments and start
ticking reproachfully, peep
out of three walls with shelves.
Two alarm clocks
ponderously hurdle the minutes.
A grandfather clock with a pendulum necktie
shows me the way.
A sunbeam
inscribes on the counter
its own vision of accuracy.
Down there, the clockmaker
is tinkering with the open intestines
of a disbatteried body.
His door rang its bell.
‘A new timepiece?’
I dislike giving false hope
so I said ‘A new chain, please.’
Then thought The one who will manage to slice
time into amazingly thin straps
and thus make good use of life
will be the happiest of us all.
The clockmaker raised his gaze
and would not agree.
Trans. from the Bulgarian by Gregory O'Donoghue
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ABOUT THE POET ~
Kristin Dimitrova (born May 1963 in Sofia, Bulgaria) is a poet, writer and translator., Her books of poetry include Jacob’s Thirteenth Child (1992), A Face Under the Ice (1997), Closed Figures (1998), Faces with Twisted Tongues (1998), Talisman Repairs (2001), The People with the Lanterns (2003) and The Cardplayer’s Morning (2008)., A Visit to the Clockmaker (2005) was published by Southword Editions, Ireland, and My Life in Squares (2010) by Smokestack Books, UK. Dimitrova is a five-times winner of different national poetry-of-the-year awards, among which the Association of Bulgarian Writers Annual Prize (2003)., Among her works of fiction are the novel Sabazius (2007), winner of the Hristo G. Danov National Award in 2008 and shortlisted for the Canetti Prize, and the two short stories collections: Love and Death under the Crooked Pear Trees (2004) and The Secret Way of the Ink (2010). Dimitrova is the co-scriptwriter of The Goat (2009), a feature film directed by Georgi Djulgerov., Dimitrova’s translation of a selection of poems by English metaphysical poet John Donne, The Anagram (1999), brought her the Union of Bulgarian Translators Award., Poems, short stories and essays by Kristin Dimitrova have been translated into 22 languages and published in 25 countries.
Last updated October 02, 2011