HBO

HBO wants to film Mogadishu, Minnesota in the towering high-riseI've lived near for forty years (except my year Turning Japanese);

also near the Starbucks I visit daily where Somali men gatherand photos of African coffee fields greet the customers,

and as I write this, Nikko rambles in with Yasminewho's flying to Qatar to visit relatives and then Mogadishu

and she's never been to Somalia, and I wonder if a filmcould catch what goes on between these two,

while in the kitchen Nikko boils water for tea and the TV's onCartoon Network and Yasmine glances at Squidbillies

and then at me as I shuffle in, disheveled, in sweats,a middle-aged Sansei who recalls when

my parents headlined a nation's fear and squint-eyedbucktoothed caricatures cartooned editorials,

and I found no films in childhood about my parentsor Little Tokyo, though I cheered John Wayne mowing down

Japs at Iwo Jima and no, I can't make sense of any of it,Squidbillies, Mogadishu, Minidoka, HBO.