We wake in the middle of a life,                                    hungry.We smear durian                along our mouths, sing softdeath a lullaby. Carcass breath, eros of licked fingersand the finest perfume. What is love if not            rot?We wear the fruit’s hull as a spiked crown, grinningin green armor.    Death to the grub, fat in his milkyshuffle! Death to the lawlessness        of dirt! Deathto mud and its false chocolate!    To the bloated sunwe want to slice open and yolk                all overthe village. We want a sun-drenched                    slug feast,an omelet loosening its folds like hot Jell-O. We wantthe marbled fat of steak and all            its swirling pinkgalaxies. We want the drool, the gnash, the pluck ofeach corn kernel, raw and summer                            swell.Tears welling up                            oil. Order up! Pickledcucumbers piled like logs for a fire, like fat limbs wepepper and succulent                          in. Order up: shrimpchips curling in a porcelain bowl like subway seats.Grapes peeled from bitter bark – almost translucent,like eyes we would rather see. Little girl, what do youleave, leaven                    in your sight? Death to the openeyes of the dying. Here,                there are so many openeyes we can’t close each one.               No, we did not saythe steamed eye of a fish. No eyelids fluttering likeno butterfly wings. No purple yam lips. We said eyes.Still and resolute as a heartbreaker.         Does this breakyour heart?                                                   Look, we don’t wantto be rude, but seconds, please. Want: globes of orangesswallowed whole like a basketball or Mars or whateverplanet is the most delicious.                            Slather Saturn!Ferment Mercury!                                Lap up its film of dust!Seconds, thirds, fourths! Meat wool!     A bouquet ofchicken feet! A garden of                        melons, monstrousin their bulge!                    Prune back nothing. We purrin this garden. We comb through berries and come outso blue. Little girl,                                        lasso tofu, the ropeslicing its belly clean. Deep fry a cloud so it tastes likebitter gourd or your father leaving – the exhaust ofhis car, charred. Serenade a snake and slither its tongueinto yours and                                        bite. Love! What is loveif not knotted in garlic? Child, we move through graveslike eels, delicious          with our heads first, our mouthsagape. Our teeth:                little needles to stitch a factory ofeverything made in China.          You ask: are you hungry?Hunger eats through the air like ozone. You ask: whatdoes it mean to be rootless? Roots are good to use astoothpicks. You: how can you wake in the middle ofa life? We shut and open our eyes like the sun shiningon tossed pennies in a forgotten well. Bald copper,blood. Yu choy bolts                       into roses down here.While you were sleeping, we woke to the old leavesof your backyard shed and ate that and one of yourlost flip flops too. In a future life, we saw rats overtakea supermarket with so much milk, we turned opaque.We wake to something boiling. We wake to wash dirtfrom lettuce, to blossom into your face. Aphids alongthe lashes. Little girl, don’t forget                  to take careof the chickens, squawking in their mess and stench.Did our mouths buckle                             at the sightof you devouring slice                  after slice of pizza andthe greasy box too? Does this frontier swoon for you?It’s time to wake up. Wake the tapeworm who loveshis home. Wake the ants,                           let them do-si-doa spoonful of peanut butter. Tell us, little girl, are youhungry, awake,                            astonished enough?