To the bathrooms of Bulgaria, I leave my priceless collection of plugs.
To its derelict shop doorways, I leave my prize bin-liners.
To the pot-holes in its motorways, my bubbling asphalt.
To its hobbling babitchkas, I leave new shoes and endless firewood.
To its dark-eyed girls, the love poems I couldn’t smuggle through Customs.
To its tracksuits, with heads of bone and mobile phones, I leave...
The babitchkas’ old shoes.
Roger McGough
Roger McGough’s latest publications are ‘The Spotted Unicorn’, a collection for adults from Viking published in the autumn, and a new anthology for children, ‘The Ring of Words’ (Faber)
