Inrasara

Translated by Phan Khế

I live in a town where all things go in
reverse. The bushes grow reversely,
shrink smaller back into seeds, and roll back
into the past-life seeds. The river flows

reversely, very swiftly. My friends,
my nephews and nieces, my siblings, and
my parents walk reversely, and
steadily become smaller, younger.

Being uncertain between the line
of night and day, life and death. The
truth of the Hời ghost is only an uncertain
legend appearing at the border of

We, the children of five, six, seven liked to
play by holding hands around the Kuao but
still our hand couldn’t meet. The Kuao tree
that my mother called the menacing deity