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POETRY

Olive Tree

“Olive Tree” read by Derek Jon Dickinson.

(for A.M.D.)

(fruit)

Kalamata, fruit of the gods. I
buy a slim jar. The lid pops
free (vinegar mirage).

With a toothpick I stab one of the
purplish, wet hearts. On the
tongue, a tapestry of salts; in the
brine; in the plump, somewhat
confusing bitter;

I taste perfection
and its regrets; I taste the poet’s
gaze; I taste the impartiality
of distance.

I taste the sun-scorched
picker’s-hand, as he prunes music
from its staff, snaps each notehead
from its pennoned stem.

 

(art)

Syrup of waning sunlight, the
olive’s green honey,

drizzled and scraped over the
crumbly terrain of bread. As eyes are
scraped over eggshell-cracked
frescos.

History-patinaed Renaissance; like
a portraitist’s oils, words don’t
dry, they oxidize.

My senses probe like
vaporous roots. Kisses sampled —
consumed or spat out.

Wine, fish, salt, oil,
bread. The crunch of romaine or
fresh greens, play together on the
immiscible vinaigrette;

as history
itself is munched on (much of
it unpalatable).

I set down my
fork, pluck another olive
from its dented, verdant
bed, glistening and deaf;

the skin’s resistance
provokes the bite forward. The
tongue hurries to the wounded
flesh; its Athenian patois, rich but
slightly hollow, like a
bit lip and its hint of blood.

 

(flight)

A gust of wings. In
the dove’s
gritty beak, olives
dangle
like extant text
from enjambment’s
snipped wires;

and the
genesis that was
almost
extinct, grafted
to the tree. Once
again, hands
filled-in applause.

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Derek Jon Dickinson is a writer and photographer living in Minnesota. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Transformations: An Oxford Flash Fiction Anthology (UK), The Manhattan Review, TriQuarterly, Zone 3, Tar River Poetry, Cordite Poetry Review (Australia), and other places. His waterfowl photography has been published by Ducks Unlimited.

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