An Ode To Olives

These are the bread of life:
green as oak leaves,
black as lust.

You can taste the desire
almost from smell,

the stuffed ones with pimientos
offer Christmas year-round.

I can see why the dead
might not like them:

too luscious
for the after-life,

earth
on a platter

that keeps
living and living

like schoolgirls
on a starry night.