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I'm An Ice Cream Baby

Everything starts with ice cream.
Behind-the-counter
Chubby brown-eyed baby
Bringing in the college campus customers
The biggest baby flirt you ever saw.
Bathed in deep metal sinks in the back
Young dad running the store with the baby
Young mom still in school
Learning to teach little older kids.
I was an only child for
Five whole years
The only baby of three from
The Upside-Down Penguin Ice-Cream Shop.

I swear to this day
Mint-chocolate chip ice cream
Runs in my veins with the blood.

Everything starts with ice cream
From meeting Jessica Queeney at three
(One old picture still left
Of two smiling babies)
To Coldstone cake-batter Reese’s pieces
With a bunch of ‘pirate’ friends
Tricia’s digital camera
Storing every moment
Of our scandalous sugary wickedness.

Everything starts with ice-cream
First date with this cute boy
(I met him where I work at Wendy’s
He ordered a side salad and a Frosty)
Johnny Rocket’s corner-table
Possibly gay? waiter
He orders an iced tea
With three sugar packets
But I got a milk shake.

Three months later
After-dark Thursday night
At our local in-the-ghetto Dairy Queen
First serious wonderful boyfriend
Talking and slurping and frustrated
Over dipped-in-butterscotch vanilla
(Dad’s favorite I’m adopting)
And vanilla chocolate swirl
Melting down the paper-covered cone.

Everything wonderful starts with ice cream.

I have a confession...I love to write poetry, so this really was not much of a challenge, but this was fun. It was like playing connect-the-dots around memories with ice cream in my life. Typically, my oral ice cream history is shorter than this: "I grew up in an ice cream shop and the obligatory tag line is that's why I'm so sweet." Ha ha. :) I actually said that to my now-boyfriend, the guy I mention in here. It's funny how ice cream honestly were the dots, huh?
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Comments

Deb said…
I love the phrase "our scandalous sugary wickedness" (and everything else about this piece too).
30/9/05 1:27 PM
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