Night Gardener

Sarajevo, 1995

I dream now of potatoes—
white, russet, red.
Sentinel potatoes, like Argus,
with eyes everywhere;
watching the dead underground
in the cemetery,
in the stadium,
in the streetcar turnaround.

Potatoes, with periscope stems,
I tend with ferocity at night
when the eyes in the hills
find it difficult to site. I bend
over hand-shaped hills, learning
the skills for coaxing seed potatoes
into full song. They hear me
humming; it is not a lullaby.