I left home to become a feral dog at a young age.
I was tired of sitting at the table
and wearing clothes all the time;
I wanted to snarl over a piece of offal
and squat wherever I wished.
So I wandered the world
on all fours,
grew a muzzle and a tail.
Picked up fleas and lice.
Caught the mange in Budapest.
And finally came to Rangoon
one sultry evening,
when the street lights were
sickly yellow
and the flying termites
dripped from the sky --
I gobbled them up with gusto.
Just my kind of place.
At first I simply chased other dogs,
nipping at their backsides.
Then I attacked the night people --
those brave, foolish people,
who were defying curfew,
marching in protest.
Being Buddhist, they never harmed
animals -- even a mangy creature like me.
It was wonderful.
I ripped apart their longyis
in a foaming frenzy, as they ran
from the police.
I loved chewing up their sandals;
most of 'em only had one pair
to their names.
In the daytime I slept under the Yangon River
docks, where it was cool and fetid.
One night I attacked an old woman
on her way home with a package
of soup bones.
She fell and hit her head on the curb.
She didn't get up again.
I feasted on the soup bones until
a crowd gathered around me.
They wouldn't let me leave, no matter
how I snapped and snarled.
They beat me with sticks and clubs.
Just my luck --
a bunch of lousy Christians.
But the laugh is on them,
because I've been reincarnated as
a general in the Tatmadaw.
And I remember distinctly each
one of them . . .
