TheBanyanTree: we all scream

Julie Anna Teague jateague at indiana.edu
Wed Apr 14 06:07:46 PDT 2010


This is fabulous Mike.  Capture, exactly, that feeling of "can I talk 
mom into some money before the truck moves on".  Oh the stresses of 
childhood!

Quoting Mike Pingleton <pingleto at gmail.com>:

> 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.
>






More information about the TheBanyanTree mailing list