Katerina has taken on the challenge of translating poems from Bulgarian and publishing 365 of them on her blog during 2015! This is post number 49!
DOUBLE-EDGED KNIFE
It’s not convenient for peeling an apple.
Nor sharpening a pencil.
I have nothing to offer it
for jabbing, stabbing,
even for whittling.
I may hang it, however,
on the wall, by the sink,
to observe with darkening contempt
my nondangerous surroundings,
while I and the rest of the stuff
live as before, and be on guard
in our atavistic underpeels.
Author: Ekaterina Yosifova
Translated from Bulgarian by Katerina Stoykova-Klemer
Ekaterina Yosifova is the author of 13 books of poetry, most recently Thin Book (Zhanet 45, 2014). She has received numerous national and international literary awards, and her poetry has been translated into more than a dozen languages. She lives and works in Sofia.
