We Forgot the Ice Cream (A Sestina)

A sestina is a thirty-nine-line poem featuring the intricate repetition of end-words in six stanzas and an envoi. The form is as follows: 1. ABCDEF – 2. FAEBDC – 3. CFDABE – 4. ECBFAD – 5. DEACFB – 6. BDFECA – 7. (envoi) ECA or ACE. The envoi must include the remaining three end-words, BDF, within the three lines so that all six recurring words appear in the final three lines. [ Poets.org ] *** Summer heat wrapped around them as she caressed the cherries, silently pulsing in the supermarket aisles. She sipped her drink. He, too, was thirsty. Someone opened the ice cream freezer, breathing frost into his pores, but the bar of chocolate he held had started to melt inside its wrapper. We need some eggs, she said, for breakfast, and for a soft, fluffy omelet: milk. The afternoon was charged with sweat. She cradled the milk close to her chest as if it were something to be cuddled. The cherries murmured among themselves inside the brown paper bag; six eggs stirred awake inside their pulp…