A (Slightly) Yummier Poem Called 'The Emperor Of Ice Cream"

on not quite meeting the reader's expectation

(with no apologies to Wallace Stevens)

he can have all the ice cream he wants

any old time.

what did you expect?

there's forty councilors in strawberry silks

lined up each day and night just to catch the drips

from his ice cream cones

piled up to the moon with vari-coloured scoops.

the toppings alone could reach Mars.

The Emperor of Ice Cream.

there's something worth aiming for thought

the worldwide child in us all still dreaming

of Neapolitan or peppermint oh sigh

on catching a glimpse of the title of your poem

in the table of contents in late Spring of a freshman year.

(that close to summer) but here's no mention of fudge ripple,

the prevaricating royal banana split, the eons of whipped cream.

nor raspberry drizzle. not a luscious word about custard even.

what happened, wallace stevens ? were you half asleep

from selling insurance

for fortnights, mon oncle, with no caramels in your pockets.

or did the title wander in from someone else's draft by mistake

with the confectionary single whine of

"there's no emperor but the emperor of ice cream"

(we all guessed that from the age of five)

or mistyped, misfiled
when your secretary was out with the measles.

you weasel. elegant on every other occasion.

did you never have birthdays to remember it by?

(ice cream, I mean ICE CREAM!)
or only cake and never

the impressionistic pink of the mounded strawberry floating in the

moon bright bowl. you could have tried!

at least to keep that guy with the cigar out of the ice cream shoppe

for a few stanzas longer.

flicking ash on all that creamery cream-
what a waste of good ice cream of 
a poem with little bells on the door.

mary angela douglas 5 may 2014;rev. 17 november 2014