A brief visit to Yangon

Pull into Yangon
Back of a right-hand drive car
Driving on the left

Against a grey sky 
Girls in polyester skirts
Squat to take selfies

Inboiund traffic grinds
Men in umbrellas and skirts
Spitting red betel

Out of the axis
Of the snakelike river bend
Mosaic of red fields

Treacherous footpath
Darkness at the heart of town
End of a straight road

Trapped in the eighties
Ibanez kid talks Blacktown,
Getting ripped off

Yangon circular
Men spit betel on the tracks
A lonely sparrow

Changing of the light
Power cutting in and out
Bride of quietness

​Venerable men
Take Yum Cha by the temple
Talk non-alignment

Chicken dumplings
Inscrutable history
​Karma and hubris
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Thirty Seventh street 
Library book from East London
Decades overdue

Drink Myanmar beer
Read Orwell under plastic 
Down on 19th street

Reflections of change
Six centuries of gold leaf
Sunshine, sudden rain