In this mountain meadow
teeming with wildflowers
a soviet rocket
juts into the sky:
rusty playground slide
abandoned to decay
lasting symbol
of communist exploits
and child’s play.
Zornitsa parts the high grasses
like seas, driven
by a secret scheme
cell phone hot against her ear.
She brought us here
to hike and eat
but clearly her mission
has evolved. It’s hard to tell
if she wants to draw us in
or shake us off.
I’ve learned her moods
turn rapidly
and after all we are relative strangers:
strange relatives from Germany.
She waves frantically
for us to follow
plowing a path
toward a boxy house watching us
through half-closed shutters:
a presence I suspected.
The back door opens
and a man emerges from seclusion.
Zornitsa shrieks and leans in
to greet him, unleashing
a flurry of flirtatious
words and gestures.
His surprise shows.
Who are they, he must wonder,
and why did she bring them
to my private hideaway?
We wonder the same.
Zornitsa leaves no room
for questions, fills the space
with the thrill
of owning this coincidence.
She is the man’s dentist and he
the father of our lovely host
found on Airbnb!
It’s a small world,
Bulgaria
and the red
carpet is rolled out for us,
another small world.
Bring on the slivova
— to hell with it — American whisky!
Sip and smile
try to keep up
with their charged banter,
amenable but alert.
Something of your mistrust
lingers, mixed
into these potent
shots of hospitality.
The man suggests we follow him,
drive in tow
along the winding mountain road.
Eventually we stop, step out
to admire the view
from an unfinished terrace.
He’s a real estate developer
who builds boxy houses
in privileged isolation.
The most beautiful corners of Bulgaria.
In future we will be
his guests… for free!
I’m charmed
as well as wary
of his generosity
(a Bulgarian trademark).
I don’t want to compromise
your integrity
with naiveté.
In over my head.
Are these wealthy people
the descendants of your oppressors?
Am I making a pilgrimage
to the wrong side?
Who am I
to doubt this man
willing to share
his fortune with strangers
ostensibly more fortunate than he?
I live in New York,
the shimmering capital of capitalism
where a silvered river winks
just beyond the windows
of our rented box.
I stand uncertain
above the valley sprawling green,
crib of my origins,
flanked by mountains you cursed
as obstacles to freedom,
essential to you as mother’s milk.
Viki Peitchev 