Pink Peppermint Ice Cream

pink peppermint ice cream

my favorite poem among the ice creams

candied cream pink of the infinitessimal

served at a birthday

there should be no further presents.

you are more than sufficient.

rosy in the dish melting and crunchy

you defy all descriptions of deliciousness.

and then my Grandmother

unveils, under the silver cake lid: the epiphany of

pink lemonade cake...

mary angela douglas 5 february 2015

A Far Away Feeling At The Birthday Party

[a true story...]

a far away feeling at the birthday party

and you remember something from the long ago

yet, how can you? you're only ten years old.

the cake seems meant for someone else.

the raspberry ice from some other season.

you feel beyond all rhymes and cannot reason it out

you only feel:

surveying the table as if from soft distances:

are these presents

wrapped in pink and blue with their contrasting

curled ribbons really meant for you?

and there's a strangeness like an invisible guest

who says to you suddenly but in your own language:

but who are you? you wonder, suddenly apart.

and the sun leaves rings on all the furniture.

the children's voices

still like larks but

in a garden someone before you knew

are just beside you in their party dress and festive too but

you're in a larger room...

mary angela douglas 26 january 2015