The only travel in the Year 2020

I met a summer afternoon

in the streets of Yangon

wafting through the mundane sights,

of a dog

lying at the feet of a man in a hammock,

of an order of monks

returning with their bowls filled with alms,

of an old woman on phone

talking to her loved one on the other side,

of the closed gates of a school

with children looking out from barred windows

For them,

I was a tourist

foreign and forever eluding

For me,

they were moving scenes from a movie poster

from a world that shall never be mine

There's something about being in a new city

that feeling of a fleeting temporary

a day, taken from the fork of my life's journey

here in Yangon, everything sparkles

like diamonds reflecting sunrays

or seeing lit-windows down from dark alleys

I'm drawn to the vegetable seller 

looking into a mirror

and to a little girl's notebook

left open for me to wonder

if her dreams were thicker

than the sieve I am holding

or if my steps were heavier 

with my heart unfolding