Never read my life
As the diary of some sad refugee.

My account is not intended
As a routine narrative of adversity overcome,
“Mere survival” once again, transcending
A descent to White–Hot Hell
Converted to the Placid Limbo of Frogs.

Know I miss the familiar strange here,
In a way you cannot fathom.

Our hard ghosts remain vigilant,
Thin as an inked scratch on an old palm leaf
Haunting with a tongue claimed incomprehensible.

The old signposts have been lost,
But in strangeness, possibility.

I hope, moving, a shadow in uncertain passages
Making melodies for newsless souls.
In daring this, might I shape some limitless star?

We, scrambling to replace what we barely knew,
Barely recognize our tangled metamorphosis,
Our hymns of recovery organs of uncertain purpose
In the body cosmic, mistaken easily

For endings, not new beginnings.

(Editors’ Note: “Narrative of the Naga’s Heirs” is read by Erika Ensign on the Uncanny Magazine Podcast Episode 8B.)

© 2016 by Bryan Thao Worra