of solongs and ashes – Min Ma Naing

tea-leaves salad, tea leave salad with dried beef, hasty hugs, tamarind whiskey sour, military boots, splashes of rains, touches, Yangon, guilt, fear, sound bombs, Sule Pagoda, fly glue trap ( yes, I know it’s cruel), Pansoedan, rusty locks, my front door with 3 locks, tears, tear gas, old film wheel, cockroach passing on the top of my feet, Changi airport, red lipstick I only wore once, “Safe Travels, Don’t Die”, rusty pipes, chipmunks, noisy batch of pigeons on my roof, hawkers, Ithaca, Polaroid first sheet which says “Love Me Tender”, red Chelsea boots, broken bricks, snow, 45min walk to home, home, forest home, pots and pans, the Downstairs, 8pm,mom, old man flannel shirt, Vici, tailless gecko which Vici probably played with, ice green tea, flix bus,15hour flight, Ngapi, Insein prison, gorges, quarantines, tomato soup from food pantry, shrink, Trumansburg, Acai Sobert, blanket,spring, Shan Noodle Shop, Crime Alerts, tasteless chewing gum after 3 hour, backstreets, deers’ eyes, mom’s dry fingers, Craiglist, Tinder, coma, chickpea powder, Danny, grief, ice machine sounds which reminds me of San Chaung nights, red fox, Father’s Office,Ouzo, vertigo, Central Park, Boa, my summer green dress which you said you like, walk with me to Beebe Lake, 37th street studio, woods, traffic, car stopping sounds, oxygen, 4am alarm, non-stop hair pulling, butternut squash, Franklin house, ambulance sound heard from the phone, get lost, walk, Brook Lane, I miss mango ice cream from Anawrahta Road (I realized I never learn its name), repeating sound of fluorescent light, last jasmine flower bought on the way to the airport, slippers, have you ever tasted snow with maple syrup?

The Title “of solongs and ashes” is extracted from E.E.Cummings’s “into the strenuous briefness”