Qiezi

by Jon Bennett

I lie there sleepless
with an incessant hard-on
wondering, hoping.
“You’re so cranky,”
she says in the morning
as I watch her
take a birth control pill
pull off the t-shirt
and cover what I want
most in the world.
I leave
walk through Chinatown
the bustle of produce shops
the piles of qiezi
the long purple eggplant
chopped off at the stem.