a tracheotomy delivering smoke
through the thin man selling ice
cream; truck painted colors don't
show the heat outside or the freezers
hip-height lining the walls holding antidote
to sweating barefoot at the driveway's edge.
Bikes wait, held, like child-props; other bikes
lay in the grass, owner's hands in jeans, fingering
a dollar and two coins. Painting a snow scene like a
snow cone, sweltering near a pot-belly stove full of wood
burning up the small room in the kitchen wear mittens drip
and wet socks get peeled off like pain relieving a brain-freeze,
head aching from too cold too fast, and hot, finally the drips stiffen
and shrink the mittens, the socks, while hours dry the leather boots,
years drawn skin around the face of the ice cream man, warming him
self through his tracheotomy, kind to cover his throat to talk the fine print.
Posted by nancy at July 24, 2013 01:00 PM