The Women’s Market, Sofia
1
Everyone keeps going to the market entrance,
but Khairi takes me aside to treat me
to Arabic pita bread.
I choose savoury. ‘Salaam alaikum,’ says
Khairi as he takes the snacks. The baker
nods respectfully. It means ‘peace be with you’,
I am told, but you stop thinking about the meaning
when you’ve got used to peace.
‘Where did you two get to?’ asks Niki Boykov later.
We are standing between Dubai Marquee
and Zoran’s Serbian Grill.
‘In the Iraqi bakery.’
‘I don’t think I know it. Not the Bagdadi one?’
‘No, the whole of Iraq. Just down
from the Syrian bakery.’
Travelling the world is difficult –
we can’t always do it. But in the market
it takes just a few steps.
And there you are:
some as if they’re aboard,
others as if they’re home.
2
‘The world is flat,’ writes Thomas Friedman
from the New York Times’ high tower.
But the world’s not like that in the Women’s Market,
it's as round as a peach,
as bright as a tomato, curly like kale,
hunched like the underwear seller,
dark as the woman with the potatoes.
There’s no way to see this from
The Big Apple but even here you can’t
miss it. New York written on tracksuits
hanging by the Tommy Hilfiger shirts. The clothes
are almost brands, almost festive,
pretty wearable,
the names of vague dreams
written across their chests.
Globalisation came here long ago
through the back entrance,
locked itself tight in the market
and remained unseen by the world.
The synagogue and mosque can confirm this,
but officially they don’t talk to each other.
3
A little garden in front of the monument
to Georgi Kirkov, socialist politician,
perched on by pigeons.
Bunches of leeks line up beneath
his stone gaze, children screaming around,
three young Gypsies, hair cut like Mohicans,
argue about a Facebook status, two girls
stealthily circle my bag.
Kirkov defended the poor and
the Women’s Market was named
after him for a time.
Then the women took back the name
and the poor stayed poor.
They circle his monument.
They don’t give two bucks for him.
If you’ve got two bucks, give them to the grill.
If you don’t, take them from your neighbour.
Or go on Facebook.
It’s free.
4
Socrates loved markets. They reminded him
of how many things he didn’t need.
The legless lady beggar would hardly
say the same. Do we expect her
to say anything at all?
The Tower of Babel might be a blessing.
I give the lady beggar a lev for the right
to imagine I’m good.
Translated by Tom Phillips
The original Bulgarian text was published in:
Literaturen vestnik (Literary Newspaper), 39, 27.11-3.12.2019,
Nova socialna poezia (New social poetry), 20, 2020
The English text first appeared in:
