James H. Duncan

Cherry Dip

sat on a bench outside of Smiley’s Ice Cream on Main Street just in time to see a state trooper pull over a lanky scarecrow of a young man with a mange-riddled face, the cruiser’s reds and blues reflecting all throughout the village downtown // by the time the cherry dip on my cone cracked into shards, the man was in handcuffs crying on the curb and the trooper began rifling through the trunk and stacking the bags of drugs on the roof, looking for all the world like pouches of baking soda \\ as eight-year-old girls on bikes ride past ringing their bells // the sun sets deep into the west where Albany might be if you closed your eyes and thought hard enough, but horizons are hard to imagine with steel on your wrists with a whole ice cream shop watching your future dissolve into a melted pool of vanilla twist on the asphalt \\ an hour later it never happened, never existed // children continue to bike home and teenagers go on asking for rainbow sprinkles on their sundaes, futures clear and bright in the lights of Smiley’s Ice Cream down on Main Street   

 

James H. Duncan is the editor of Hobo Camp Review and the author of We Are All Terminal But This Exit Is Mine, Vacancy, and Tributaries, among other books of poetry and fiction. He currently resides in upstate New York and reviews indie bookshops at his blog, The Bookshop Hunter. For more, visit www.jameshduncan.com.