TheBanyanTree: we all scream

[Mike Pingleton]

Apropos of the year's first ice cream truck....


coming around the curve of the earth
the white truck blaring für elise
and a hundred heads between pricked ears
bolt upright, shouting to their mothers
for a nickel, please!  quick!  mom!  please!
the ice cream man cometh at a slow sure roll
matching the pace of a panicked child,
bearing blessings, cold dairy comfort
for our street only, please! mom! please!
don’t let it be
all the kids but me.

by the next block the truck plays greensleaves,
and left in its wake are curbside urchins
down to chewing flat sticks to splinters
while balled up wrappers roll down gutters.
dribbled melt on chins as child minds reckon
the circumnavigation of their world,
the next anxious nickel moment,
the orbit of that cold musical comet
around a sun the color of a popsicle tongue.