The Olive Thief

Some moon-full nights,

I lose the thread of time, and

dream you’re grown

Your reach, like an oak, stretches

impossibly

to every place

I’ll never travel;

your voice, the same

hollow timbre of

your papa’s cello.

But here in the byway

where we linger in the dark,

your sun-gold hand is

dimpled as a baby’s;

your fingers slyly closing

over the last green olive

while I pretend

to have never

noticed you

at all.