A Poem by Linnea Wortham Harper

Poem to Popsicles

 

                  after Judith Barresi

              

Popsicles, popsicles,

sweet and cold,

I estimate your worth

by the calculus of calories and color,

refinements of texture and taste,

the power of the pleasure shock,

hydraulics of licking and sucking,

numb lips, dull ache of jaw, brain freeze—

the internalized science of melting.

Like kids out of school

popsicles say, Now it’s winter. 

Come and play.

 

There will be no premature thawing

in this house.

 

Fruitsicles, fudgesicles, Rockets

and push-ups, blueberry, raspberry,

strawberry, orange—

 

I choose you—

because the iceman no longer comes

but still has a pension, because in

hospitals you can get one any time,

tonsils or no tonsils,

because between things,

like the space between stanzas,

or generations,

you need something sweet

and bracing, to give you a reason

to stop, and gather what’s needed

to go.

 

Allowance:  Enough to buy one

double popsicle five days

a week, preferably blue, but

root beer will do.

 

Obedience:  Not crossing 6th Street

alone to buy popsicles at Reeves’.

 

Obeisance:  Abject subjugation.

Popsicles, I am yours!

 

Coconut, mango, tangerine, cherry,

grape, lime, mixed fruit, berry—

if I never eat one again, how will I fill

this void that wants to swallow me,

reward thirst and task completion,

bring childhood’s sweet mystique

to the heart of each day, escape

the tyranny of meal time, win

sweepstakes, make angels

in snow?

 

My dears, the cold wars are over.

Heat rises around the globe. We must

conserve our resources. In the freezer,

fill up the spaces between things with

popsicles. Pack popsicles in the cooler

instead of plain ice. Use crushed popsicles

for a cold pack. Drop popsicles for

drought relief in Africa, to distract the

Taliban in Afghanistan, and annoy the

French wherever they are. Make slicks of

popsicle slush to slip-up Wall Street.

Provide popsicles free to the citizenry. 

 

Let us eat popsicles!

 

Creamsicles, Jolly-pops, diet or sugared,

store brands, Dreyer’s, home-made with

jello, quiescently frozen or rock-hard—

 

I eat popsicles not to satisfy hunger

but to celebrate it. A longing somewhere

between lust and thirst rises up and my

organs sing a churchly tune. A mouth has

so much to do, all that talking, spitting and

flossing, it needs a quick lift now and then.

 

Boxes of popsicles, take me home now.

In the movie version I leave the store

with a sackful of edible mercies—

personal sandbags that keep the black holes

at bay. But what of the waif with a sign who

preys by the door? I give what I can

or at least what I have in my wallet.

I know she can’t fill her belly with bills.

Must I give her what I love most?

 

Jolly Rancher, Ice Pix, Arctic Blasters,

Swirl Stix— wave your wands and take me

to your truth. The freezer is calling. Cubes

clatter as the ice maker drops a new litter.

They do not pelt me when I open the door.

It is not the cold I fear, but the emptiness.

 

 

 

Linnea Wortham Harper is a regular contributor to Kind of a Hurricane Press, most recently in the Storm Cycle anthology. Her work has been published in CALYX, and she has been a finalist for the Bunchgrass Prize. She was once a social worker, twice a mother, and always a poet. She lives and writes on the Oregon Coast.