Today We Talked about Our Pregnant Wives
Today we talked about our pregnant wives
over a cup of tea
and stems of hyacinth
in a vase on the kitchen table,
we talked joyfully, without complaining,
about those times
when their agile bodies
turn into workshops,
into labs of alchemists,
where storms of divine power
rage, entangling elements
so unknown—that’s when it seems
that our lives have been taken over
by women who are total strangers,
with whom we’re suddenly living,
until our children
are born, then
our wives
slowly return, erasing
the memory of the strange women with
a gracefulness that only they possess
Svilen Ivanov is the author of the poetry collection south of the lips, west of the sea and the children’s story Mysteries of the Milky Way (Riva Publishing House). He has also served as a screenwriter for several animated films for children. He has over eight years of experience working as a journalist and was honored with the Panitsa journalism award in 2003.
Ekaterina Petrova is a literary translator and nonfiction writer. She holds an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Iowa, where she was awarded the Iowa Arts Fellowship and helped edit the Exchanges Journal of Literary Translation. Currently based in Bulgaria, she teaches translation at Sofia University. READ LESS Ekaterina has been a translator-in-residence at Art Omi Translation Lab in Ghent, NY; the National Centre for Writing in Norwich, UK; the Prishtina Has No River program in Kosovo; and Open Letter Books in Rochester, NY. Her translations and nonfiction writing have appeared in various Bulgarian and English-language publications.
