Nadya Radulova | Bulgaria

The Open Window

When soft morning light enters the room
and turns into a cat, the cat into a rose,
the rose into a small, barely noticeable
wound above the ankle, when
no one notices the wound and it closes up unnoticed,
when after months or even
after many happy years —
you put on woolen winter socks and admire
your legs, and read their delicate old-fashioned
road maps of varicose and arthritis —
you notice the barely noticeable scar
and run your fingers over it, but no,
it’s impossible to put your finger
in this wound, this little woundlet,
and you don’t even remember it, who, how, where —
the scar is your only chance
to relive that unremembered-memorable
pinprick-scratch,
to blossom, bristle, and stick your tail up,
to be the author of this wound-rose-cat,
and let something in the story snap, something bind,
something else take flight — you
jumping out the window
and returning into the light.