Creation Myth

By Laurie Wheeler

There is harmony on Heliotrope.
Cyclists are truing spokes,
at the Kitchen
and down the block
ice cream is served
in novel scoops.

The static teeth of rosemary
the felt nose of lavender
cured in cream, merged.
Boundaries blur.
What’s born in the bottom of paper bowls,
Destined to dribble down a girl’s chin?

You remember the exotic balm
of peppermint stick,
pink on your tongue
at Tuesday’s Parlor,
your first church.
The old, wooden floors.
They creaked
beneath the motor of an industrial fan.
The smell of sugar in heat.
The murmurs of the hymnal
scrawled in purple chalk,
today’s flavors
passed down,
old to young, in dripping cones.
You learned how to say “sherbet.”

You moved to Bethesda
all possibilities
boiled down to 31.
In high school, a song stirred you
like a hand churn.
“I am 32 flavors and then some.”
You rebelled against pint-sized feelings.
College belonged to Ben, to Jerry.
Ice cream irony and its eclectic flock.
Postgrad, you craved simplicity.
You began to believe in
the grace of singularity.
Even Neapolitan was
unduly complex.
The name, so close
to the infamous French commander.
Strawberry, the thin pink line of war.
You found the sleek spoons of gelato,
the stainless steel bins,
the modest portions,
the foreign tongue.

This afternoon on Heliotrope
all you want is soft serve.
Chocolate and vanilla:
The yin-yang of childhood.
To ride back to some
Dairy Queen heyday,
you want it fast, smooth,
and served by a woman in a headset.
The gentle slope of white,
the tongue’s slalom,
that peak, so clean.
And its shadow,
the other side of the mountain.
How they grip each other,
swirl in delicate swirl.

You find it
at McDonald’s on Melrose
driving through.
Your father’s Stevie Wonder cassette
grinding its reels in the player.
You remember when ice cream
was signaled by a song
coming down your summer block.

You lick and hum,
“Ebony and Ivory.”

This article was originally published in Slake No. 3 To read all of the stories from that issue, purchase or subscribe at shop.slake.la.