Sorcerer’s Truck
The sorcerer parks his ramshackle truck and gets out.
After he walks away from his truck,
People draw a sacred circle of protection around it.
The night wears my shoes and stands on a mountaintop.
My bone-dryness rises in the sky like the moon.
Revolution is a personal thing.
When I stumble and fall on my face, you will watch.
You and your angry crowd will spit in my face.
Your angry crowd has always been this way in history.
I am alone and that makes you happy, doesn’t it?
I take a ride in the sorcerer’s truck.
When I get to another city, I will try to forget about this one.
But I know I won’t escape from your angry crowd.
They will also be around in the new place.
I will tell them the roach dying under my tongue is a tree.
If I lie to them, I think they will love me.
You and your crowd are too many. I am just one.
I must make sure I won’t get crushed under your bodies.
The sorcerer’s truck shoots off into a new moon in a cinema.
Di Lu Galay
Translated from the Burmese by Maung Day