The park is steaming in the summer heat.
Off to the side, I see the ice cream vendor.
I trade him for a cone, a little treat,
A one-time thing for such a careful spender.
No open benches far as I can see,
Nor hills without a peopled picnic blanket,
Nowhere to sit that’s satisfactory
To break into this cold refreshing banquet.
The sun is beating down upon my brain,
And flies are flitting round the frozen nectar.
I slog to find hospitable terrain
Where strangers do not follow like a specter.
But now my hand is wet. The ants amass
To lick the scoop half-melted in the grass.