According to mother

Written By Dimana Yordanova

According to mother, 

to be happy,

it is enough not to smoke and do your washing by hand, 

according to father, 

to be happy it is enough to be poor and live in Russia,

according to grandmother, 

to be happy 

it is enough to eat more than enough. 

My grandfather has only three teeth.

Happily, he doesn’t talk, 

he bites into a tomato.

 

Translated by Hristo Dimitrov / Edited by Tom Phillips

The Bulgarian  text first appeared in “The men and women I have been” (Janet-45, 2017 )

Dimana Yordanova

Dimana Yordanova was born in 1986 in Veliko Tarnovo. She graduated from a fine arts secondary school, then studied Balkan Studies. She has published three books of poetry: The men and women I have been (2017); Down the backbone (2018); and Letters to Nia, to whom I did not give birth (2020), all three of them printed by the Janet publishing house. In 2019 her first book for children came out: What a mess! (Janet 45) 

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