day FOUR HUNDRED and FIFTY TWO

California Olives

When I think of America, I think of a wormfruit.

a rotten taste and easy bruises,

yet comforting and honest,

like the smell of your own genitals or piss.

When I think of America, I think of an olive

black and without a stone. 

The can is as ugly and mundane as obituaries,

and the olives inside are aching

themselves into tar.

America cannot be pitted.

like the olives from Italy or Greece.

Those olives have a mucusy tree buried inside.

American olives are always hollow like flat tires

you see along highways,

for convenience, for slicing.

I won't throw out the can I bought

for less than a dollar.

It's as big as a monument,

so I'll need a whole month to eat it.

I know it will taste

like bruises, like soft nickels.

--Nadia Wolnisty

Nadia Wolnisty is author of two chapbooks, published by Cringe-Worthy Poetry Collective and Finishing Line Press. Her work has also appeared in Apogee, McNeese Review, Paper & Ink, Philosophical Idiot, Spry and others. A chapbook and a full-length are forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press and Spartan