How do you by Lauren Kahle

How do you, asks the girl with piggy tails

Eat ice cream that melts with every step

That you take, and drips goo on your fingers

Like lava sliding down the mountain side

Rich and colorful, full of inertia

Causing destruction as it moves forward

And tumbling to its spontaneous fate

Kerplop, the drop plunges to the sidewalk

A miniscule piece of lava escaped

While your brother chases you down the street

Trying to steal your precious, creamy treat

Unsuccessful attempts to have a bite

Leaving sugary pools of nonsense smeared

Across a youthful face, like margarine

Smeared across a warm blueberry bagel

On a Sunday morning, slowly melting

And while bees swarm around, trying to get

Their share, those pesky bees, always mooching

Now the ants form a teeny tiny crowd

Around the kamikaze ice cream drops

And everybody wants in on it

And while it melts and melts and morphs into

A frothy drink caged in a waffle cone

Swinging back and forth like sweet tidal waves

And mama calls from the front yard and says

“It’s about time for dinner, come wash up”

The most dreaded moment of summer days

The end of play time, and ice cream eating

How do you eat this ice cream cone while all

Forces of the universe oppose it?

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How do you

BY KABIR

How do you,

Asks the chief of police,

Patrol a city

Where the butcher shops

Are guarded by vultures;

Where bulls get pregnant,

Cows are barren,

And calves give milk

Three times a day;

Where mice are boatmen

And tomcats the boats

They row;

Where frogs keep snakes

As watchdogs,

And jackals

Go after lions?

Does anyone know

What I’m talking about?

Says Kabir.