Olives.(Poem)

 
Olives 
 
   Sometimes a craving comes for salt, not sweet, 
   For fruits that you can eat 
   Only if pickled in a vat of tears-- 
   A rich and dark and indehiscent meat 
   Clinging tightly to the pit--on spears 
 
   Of toothpicks, maybe, drowned beneath a tide 
   Of vodka and vermouth, 
   Rocking at the bottom of a wide, 
   Shallow, long-stemmed glass, and gentrified; 
   Or rustic, on a plate cracked like a tooth-- 
 
   A miscellany of the humble hues 
   Eponymously drab-- 
   Brown greens and purple browns, the blacks ...