That Shade of Blue

I wrote the first 10 or so lines of this poem forever ago and then stopped. I knew it had somewhere it wanted to go, but its path was unclear at the time. It finished itself the other night while I could not sleep. I jotted it down on Post-It notes while sitting on the deck at a friend’s house watching the angry waves of the Pacific crash against the shore and he slept peacefully in the other room…

Law-Abiding Ice Cream Men

The sky was my favorite color last night.
That shade of blue you just can’t quite describe.
On days like this, I could live here forever.
I know I mostly drive the wrong way
down the one way streets.
I scare the law-abiding ice cream men
who don’t believe in happy accidents or
the coincidence of memory -
and who seem to be perpetually
one block away.
I’m craving salt today, but
that doesn’t stop me from chasing the ice cream truck
down the street -
in the vain hope that
this time I’ll catch up.
Looking back over the distance I ran,
I can’t believe I got this far without passing out.
The ice cream in the cone
is soft,
and creamy,
and phallic.
It satisfies my licking fetish,
but does not fix
my salt problem.
How did I come to find myself alone
in a desert with no oasis
with ice cream running over my fingers
and melting
into my eyes?
It’s dark now.
When did night fall?
I think I may be blind.
This doesn’t feel
- or taste -
like ice cream anymore.
It’s coppery and thick.
Blood on the moon.
Blood in my eyes.
I somehow don’t think the ice cream man can save me now -
even if he does miss me
and realizes that
he left me here
all alone
and comes back
to help the bloodhounds search for my body.
It will be way past too late by then.
Do you think the sky will be that shade of blue
again tonight?
I feel the sun begin
to scorch
and bleach
my bones and
I’m not craving salt anymore.