"The Poet Dreams of Driving a Ding-a-Ling Ice Cream Truck" by Candice Kelsey

The Poet Dreams of Driving a Ding-a-Ling Ice Cream Truck

Turkish coffee grounds say her parents are not her parents but believe she is their child. She will hear moonlight rendezvous with jackhammering through her bedroom window. She will leave home, the coffee grounds predict, seek warmth in what skylines hand her. There will be much. She will know explosions. Sometimes, as she blinks her eyes, she will see the trees know more than the dead. The grounds reveal she will drag one foot toward poets & children who take bullets again & again. She hears she will wrap her neck in sand. Raw silk bodices with pearls will guide her way when the sunlight fades. & she will return to the river, the thunderstorm, the place where she had everything she never wanted to have. Ambient & shadow heavy, her skin will bow with tales never to be told, as many stories as a life has touch. According to the patterns on the bottom of the cup, she will never know these words to become things. She doesn’t hear a thing. She’s dreaming of the white suit she’d wear when driving a Ding-a-Ling Ice Cream Truck across Mulholland & into her own, the sun a saucer of possibility.

Candice kelsey

Candice Kelsey [she/her] is a poet, educator, and activist currently living in Augusta, Georgia. She serves as a creative writing mentor with PEN America's Prison & Justice Writing Program; her work appears in Grub Street, Poet Lore, Lumiere Review, Hawai'i Pacific Review, and Slant among other journals. Recently, Candice was chosen as a finalist in Iowa Review's Poetry Contest and Cutthroat's Joy Harjo Poetry Prize. Her third book titled A Poet just released with Alien Buddha Press. Find her @candicekelsey1 and www.candicemkelseypoet.com.

Headshot: Leora Wright

Photo Credit: Staff