Public Republic

Aksinia Mihailova

Photo: NatureFreak07

My left hand
over a piece of paper;
if you erased
my thumb and my little finger
and replaced them with verse,
my hand mutilated and bony
seen from the above
would resemble
a step of a bird
chained to the piece of paper
with tiny inky bracelets.
Like that exotic bird
of the painting at the Gouttiere gallery:

she is learning how to fly on the ground,
ignoring the tourists,
picking up the seeds
only from the palm of her master.

Translated from Bulgarian by Roumiana Tiholova