When I ask my sister to explain his bad breath

she tells me alcohol is not digested

like most substances that bathe our body.

The body absorbs it quick as a clock, detects 

it as a toxin, employs the whole digestive 

tract to process. Its metabolism croaks

not only in the liver, but in all the rooms

of the body. Alcohol is metamorphosed

into acetaldehyde, a chemical that can 

perform serious damage to the DNA

and ban the cells from reversing 

the damage — I covet its intelligence. 

It eats up the tissue of the mouth 

& esophagus, feasts on the stomach

lining. Unspeakable the hell the liver 

swims through. Imagine a body full 

of blackbirds inside. Awed by the fat 

books in her head, I note all this down.

You're repeating the word body a lot, 

I tell her, to which she says, we are 

but our bodies. And anyway, are you 

writing poetry, or preparing for a biology 

paper? I ask her to go back to the liver.

The human liver lives at the pace 

of one drink an hour. But your father,

she tells me as if he isn't hers, drinks six.

Is that what he means, I ask, when he 

says his liver's a wreck — because 

of the overwork? She nods. By the time

it is all metabolized, the alcohol is all 

over your body, soiled in blood, raining

over your brain — the repetitive speech, 

the loudness, the fearless bhangra. 

With her whole hand, she draws

an infinity in the air, says:

and whatever is in your blood

is in your lungs. What else

do you think will come

out of his mouth?