It's 2:30 am. Dark still. Almost the moon is full.

My brother wears yellow
rubber gloves and sunglasses.
He's a crossbreed
between one of the blues
brothers and one of the ghost
busters. I can't figure out
which of my parents are bluesy
and which is a buster.

"You don't know
how to conserve
energy!" Mama says.

“Why don’t you say
excuse me?
Why don’t you
say excuse me?
Why don’t you say
excuse me? Why
don’t you say excuse
me? Why don’t you
say excuse me? Why
don’t you
say excuse me?
Are you almost done?
Why don’t you say excuse me?”

“A junkie walking through the twilight./
I’m on my way home,”
Gil Scot-Heron says.

I’m eating
putobongbong
drinking
pito pito.

My brother’s new fixation:
taking steel pots to the sink,
forcing the water
out of the faucet at full
blast, sloshing a brush
around keeping perfect
rhythm and belching
in between. He inspects
the sides of the pot
for microscopic galaxies
and residual legume germs
while ripping a flatulent explosion--


“Explosive,”
he says.

“A lot of people in the world are thirsty,”
I say.

I wrap the purple putobongbong
in a banana leaf
and cap the coconut shreds.
I can intoxicate the air
with a thumb piano
while my brother talks
to the propane-fed stovetop. He stops
talking to himself.
“What’s that sound?” He asks.
“Mbira.”

Neuroleptic. I smell myself.
I smell
my foot. My feet stink.
There’s a hole
in my shirt. Yeah. I should do that.
Neh. Yeh. Hrcccgh.

He has phlegm—an excess
of yin—an excess of yang. Is that you?
Yeah I’m just talkin’ to myself.
I forgot about crossbreeds. Nah.
They’re nothing like what you think
are mulattoes or mestizos.
You never say a word. Hmmm.

He watches the flame. It’s dark
everywhere else. He’s tapping
with the mbira. There’s a lullaby
rupturing dammit. It’s about time
we are no longer cartoons.
We are no longer jarred
peppers and ceramic pots.

“Do you know how to cook beans?”