Gusher

Who would care about sunrays streaming
through the windows of the co-op except
someone filling a plastic container

with olive oil in the bulk produce aisle,
watching the light infuse the rising tide
of green-gold oil flowing from the spigot

almost as slowly as the sap once rose
in the tree in California where the label
says it’s from. No wonder it dazzles given

that olives are little more than drops
of sunshine in a semi-solid state
that just now are reliving their story

right in the middle of my container
as a slow-motion swirl, a strange funnel
of bright bubbles, gathers itself upward

and I can see the olive tree emerging,
first the trunk and then the branches and
pale green leaves unfolding like a strand

of DNA. It’s good the co-op doesn’t charge
for reverie, but someone might have told me
my cup was running over—still, I closed

the tap just before it did and capped
as best I could this shimmering gusher
of imagination with the thin, plastic lid.