Ice Cream and Cold Revenge
by and published in Edition Four of Pomegranate
I sit, steeped in sour milk, still contemplating the way you smashed
all my Russian dolls, cracking their wide-eyed painted skulls
against the dead paving of grey reality.
Acerbity spikes along my tongue; to kill the aftertaste,
I slide slow spoonfuls of ice cream into my mouth,
sucking in artificial sweetener to make a more muscovado day.
I pause, spoon halfway to my lips, as another vinegary memory hits –
just as I’d finished clumsy brain surgery with a glue gun,
I saw you escaping over the garden wall, your arms filled
with stolen cabbages, acquired through trespassing.
You dropped one; it bounced forlornly
and came to rest at my feet.
I carve savagely into my saccharin sundae as I remember that
next, you snapped open the shells of all my prized peapods,
while I was busy apologising to my neighbour, the sorceress,
over her cabbageless backyard – you spilled my secrets
onto the tiled floor like egg yolks, or marbles,
for others to slip upon and curse.
And – as smooth swallows glaze my throat in cold vanilla –
how you so gallantly refused at the vital moment
to spin straw into gold, instead using my hair as a getaway route,
and leaving me to take the flak. Well, here’s some news – I cut it,
all of it, flaxen locks strewn on the floor; a nest of copperhead snakes,
soaking up the egg yolks to make a brighter yellow.
I called it Penultimate Post-Modernist Art and made a fortune.
Did you know you killed three innocent bystanders in your
stupid car chase stunt? They never show boring casualties on film.
My life is no longer the theatre for your antics –
as soon as I’ve picked up all my pieces, I’m off –
but not before I’ve tasted revenge, sugary cold and so sweet,
the satisfying last scrape of the spoon against the glass.
Katie Allen
Katie Allen was raised in the desolate wastes of the North, but due to happenstance is currently studying English and Creative Writing at Warwick, of all places. She is eighteen and has never been published before, but this is okay because she spends all her time daydreaming anyway, usually about pashminas and cherry smoothies. If all else fails, when she eventually grows up she wants to run an ice cream parlour.