Lilies and Olives

There was no way I could boil and drink yesterday's espresso, or move the olive tree to the ridge, or make the sky forever purple, or perch in the trees with the sparrows and blue jays. There was no way I could forget how you aimed the car toward the cliff when I was only fourteen because you were having one of the many rages. There were wars all over the world on the day of my eighteenth birthday when my car broke down in Carmel and I tried to look older with Max Factor as I waited by the beach smelling the sand and spray and foam from and the old fishing boats. There was never a way to cut the fire from my mouth and replace it with a hand full of lilies and roses. I'll just stay here among the California oranges and sparrows listening to their infinite red and brown stripped lives and on occasion a hummingbird.