My ears prick up.
Through the clear night
crackle the words--
at night is when
I can hear, after
laborers stop work
for the day: pounding
the lime-bricked house next door
to dust for the six-storey cementblock.
A quarrel
In English!
School's Out!
The neighbor's daughter
And son
Home for vacations
From American universities
I saw them last week
She thin, lasered
Femdom in lycra black
He parentally-doted
In slacker mode
And Pornqueens Work Long and Hard t-shirt.

I ease on to the verandah--
'Ma, you have to tell her...'
'Shut up!'--
Through gridlines of grille
And thin-leafed branches
I see kerosene lamps
Licking the liquid edge
Of Dhanmondi lake
Where night fishermen
Like storks
Study ripples and sigh.

I fly back to the States the
Day after
To classes in New York
To a dorm where also live
Four other Bangoos like me
Yelling in ragged Bangla
About pizzas and stacked hotties
Shouting 'khol shala!'
At locked bathroom doors
But right now
With a smudged moon
Above a creased Dhaka night
And a sibling spat
With nasally-slanted vowels
I have to ask:
Where am I?