the mobilizing of the troops

coincided with the amassing 

of numerous migrating birds

only magpies crows and vultures

will winter here

sparrows titmouses finches

and the rest of the feathered ones

will seek the path to their salvation

some will become too attached to people

others will live in holes and shelters

in both cases

nobody again will call them

birds

TRANSLATOR BIO:

Katerina Stoykova is the author of several award-winning poetry books in English and Bulgarian, as well as the Senior Editor of Accents Publishing. Her latest book, Second Skin (ICU, 2018, Bulgarian) received the Vanya Konstantinova biannual national poetry award, as well as a grant from the European Commission’s program Creative Europe for translation and publication in English. Katerina acted in the lead roles for the independent feature films Proud Citizen and Fort Maria, both directed by Thom Southerland. Her poems have been translated into German, Spanish, Ukrainian, Bangla, Farsi, and a volume of her selected poems, translated into Arabic by acclaimed poet Khairi Hamdan, was published in Arabic from Dar Al Biruni press in 2022.