IVANKA MOGILSKA
The day dissolves
The day dissolves
like vitamins in a glass of water
that someone has forgotten on the table.
It fizzes.
It gurgles quietly.
There’s no one around to hear
its petty complaints
so it falls silent,
the bubbles pop,
the sediment settles.
In the evening, the owners come home
and pour it down the sink.
She wants an unhemmed sky
She wants an unhemmed sky,
with frayed edges,
so while it unravels,
she can
jump up
and grab one thread
and climb
back up it
to the top.
Imagine, my darling
Imagine, my darling,
us getting old,
us shrinking –
like the lead of a used-up pencil.
Time hangs on us, baggier
and baggier
and shakes us –
through the sleeve.
Translated by Angela Rodel
Ivanka Mogilska was born in 1981. She studied Theatre Directing for six semesters at the Bulgarian National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts, and graduated from Sofia University in Public Relations. She is the author of the poetry collection Otherwise (Janet 45 Print and Publishing, 2010), the novel Hideaways (Janet 45 Print and Publishing, 2007) and the poetry collection DNA (Janet 45 Print and Publishing, 2004).
In 2005 DNA won the Pegasus Award for a Poetic Debut at the Southern Spring Competition in Sofia. In 2008 Hideaways was selected by the European First Novel Festival, part of the International Book Festival in Budapest. Ivanka has read her works at the Bulgarian Cultural Centre in Budapest and in Pecz, Hungary. In 2011 she and the artist Albena Baeva took part in the performance DNA Of Words — in which an electronic instrument converted poetry into musical soundscapes. In 2012 three of her poems were published in Brown Bunny Magazine.
