Dream the dream called dirty 
laundry & dress me 
as you like: knee-high 

stockings of a call girl, feathered hair 
of an Indian boy pulling 
arrows, his bow strung. 

Remember: point to shoot. 
Tonight, I pull your body 
taut from the quiver, watch it fall 

apart in lost fletchings. Lilacs 
sprout from the small of a statue’s 
back as it bends away from us, 

grasping for the hand of a friend 
whose body, once handsomely 
defined, has worn smooth & round 

as a cat’s eye. The air around us
condenses into locusts: a whole 
life spent digging for eggplants 

& daikon to make a stew.
I should’ve mined the vegetables 
from my body, realized 

I have a turnip for a tongue.