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