By the story the parents tell the little kid, they intend to

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TEXT I

Snake, with My Name

After Latt Loon Wai Oo’s “The One Left Behind in the Womb”

By Nay Thit

Before I was born, my mother says, there was another boy. My

brother. One day, half-asleep during lunch, he turned into a

snake, just like that. Shed his human skin. They said

something in him snapped wild, and he slithered away. Never

5 came back. That’s why I’m told to sit up straight when I eat,

chew properly, and don’t play with my food. I never believed

any of it. But one day, coming home from preschool, my father

pulled a small photo from the old family album. Pointing: a tiny

snake, grainy and dark in the black-and-white frame. That’s

10 him, he said. Your brother. He would’ve been your age when

it happened. That’s why we had you. Started over. So lucky

you’re here, eating carefully, staying human. Mother looked

sad. She said he had my name. That it was passed down from

him. In the photo, the snake isn’t clear—just a smudge of

15 shadow, barely a shape. Small enough to believe it once was

a boy. A five-year-old like me, maybe. Sitting outside our

house. Among plastic toys, little cars, and a broken tricycle.

The picture is still, but I could feel him moving. Pulling away

from his place in the frame, inching toward somewhere else.

20 That must be how he left our lives. Quiet and slow, but already

on his way.

Adapted from: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/

1731701/snake-with-my-name Accessed on November, 17th, 2025

By the story the parents tell the little kid, they intend to

scare him to death.

show him how lucky he is.

teach him some etiquette.

avoid telling him the painful truth.