By Megan Choritz
Olive Tree Story
We will tell the story
Of the monster boys
Who marauded the olive grove
To burn an ancient olive tree
The old man bent beneath it
Cried salty tears into the
The dry earth
Roots clung
Talons
Whose scaly skin hardened
The water rerouted
Wells cemented
Pipes severed
Old man and tree will wait at heaven’s gates
In the story we will tell
Those that come before them will be harshly judged
Only monsters murder olive trees
And monsters do not know the life force and source
of growing things
In the story
We will not curse them for the harm it will do us
Instead, we plant an olive tree
7,503 kilometers away
As the crow flies
But here is my secret
I will imagine the monsters shrivel with every sin they perform
They will dry
Bitter and wrinkled
And without childlike joy
