Come and look, they said.

The bend of the road was blooming again.
Kham-en-look, the child said,
who overheard what his father had said.
They smiled because they knew it was wrong,
not because of what it meant.

There were fireworks that night, they said.
Celebrations and lamentations in song.
The sound kept perfect time:
BOOM – – – | BOOM BOOM – –
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
BOOM BOOM – –

In the morning, the roads smelled of diesel, they said.
Ambulances had gone up and down the hills
so many times,
they wore grooves into the asphalt.
But what they carried, no one ever said.

Where promises of brotherhood and holy matrimony said — defecated!
Victory is in the air,
swirling with the scent of roasted meat.
Whiskey bottles glinted beside Bibles.
Who desecrated the church?
Depends on he said, she said.

Come and look—they whisper from hills above.
Kham en look—they whisper from the fog below.
It is dangerous to enter without backup.
One said 20. One said 70.

A weeping wife said, “He never came back.”
A grieving brother said, “We made sure he wouldn’t.”

(The Chief came the next day,
not to say anything,
and also to say nothing.)

The middlemen—
the ones who carry both soil and salt—
they said: kham en look. Ghost town!
One said 20. One said 70.

A weeping mother says, “He never came back.”
A grieving brother says, “We made sure he wouldn’t.”

Someone heard over a broken transmission.
Someone overheard their father.
Someone said, “Nonsense! You know how people talk.”

Because here, if you say it plainly,
they will bind your tongue.
Beat you until you speak in riddles.

But in riddles, the truth reaches further.
And yes—if you ask me,
I will say I’m fibbing.
It is in my blood.