I am the Empire. I hold its last days
quivering in my hand. I clutch the sound,

The drawn out shadows on dust-ridden ways
clamping and cluttering on hallowed ground.

My words turn to match their changeling voices,
I simper, squeal to emulate their squall:

I ask my mother if there are choices
left to make, or if this is each and all

offered to us. She tells me that it is. 
So off I go, buttoned in silk roses 

tongue-tied and trained in Coleridge and Keats,
singing communion in parrot noises

until they ask for rainwater. What is
the Burmese word for having forgotten

what was already yours? If I am less 
than the stone-drenched home-bird I could have been

it is not for want or lack of trying. 
See, my mother tongue is stones in my mouth. 

The words that sing home are dead and dying.
The syllables I sigh rise up and out. 

Blinking years flash. Home is a nest elsewhere. 
Saltwater-driven, desert-drawn,

I forget now what this song is about.
Mandy Moe Pwint Tu is a writer and a poet from Yangon, Myanmar. Her work has appeared in Longleaf Review, Tint Journal, and perhappened mag, among others. She currently studies English at the University of the South. Hang out with her on Twitter @mandrigall.
header image: Joe Cory via Unsplash