Olive Tree

There wasn’t any way I could have boiled and drunk yesterday’s cup of espresso or moved the olive tree past the ridge or make the sky forever purple, or perch with the sparrows and blue jays on an oak tree branch. There wasn’t any way I could have made the Pontiac go any faster or upside down or sideways while I sped down the highway trying to escape my father. There were wars all over the world then, while I tried to look as beautiful as possible for a date and walked down on the beach smelling the sand and feeling the soft spray of foam from an old fishing boat going by. There wasn’t any way I could cut my tongue out or replace it with a hand full of lilies or olive leaves. I couldn't afford to listen to my friends anymore, as I hid in Long Beach, California and stay there at the thought of being alive among the oranges and lemons and the sparrows with their infinitesimal red and brown stripped lives and an occasional hummingbird.