by Alisha Goldblatt
after “The Emperor of Ice Cream” by Wallace Stevens
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| Photo: Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse, via Getty Images via The New York Times. |
Lick the sins of countries past,
the thrown stone, and gather your pints
in unbleached paperboard, crisp waffle cones.
Sell hazelnut play on words that
signal virtue and decadence, and
slick the tongue divine, smooth on spoon.
Let slingshots rile the bull market.
The only flavor is a flavor of fear.
In the modern white freezer, vats
blister thumbs from the plastic scoop
whose spring-back lever neatly cleaves the ice.
The Green state, the Holstein cows, the fourteenth star.
Shirtsleeves cuffed, tough and chocolate stained
to show how cold we are, and numb.
Let the melting be violent and swift.
The only flavor is the flavor of fear.
Alisha Goldblatt is an English teacher and writer living in Portland, Maine with her two wonderful children and one lovely husband. She has published poems in the Common Ground Review, Literary Mama, and Burningword Literary Journal, among several others. Alisha writes whenever she can and gets published when she’s lucky.