To Be Six in Your First Italian Gelateria

Spread out before you,
whipped and bright coloured,
dripping with sauces,
a world of unimagined flavours, 
untranslatable.

Your siblings walk away 
with their favourites, chocolate, vanilla,
scoops bigger than your head
and you just continue to stare.

When you can’t decide,
we let you choose two flavours,
knowing a cone 
has never defeated you.

While the others dance 
in the rain battering the square,
you give your full concentration
to catching drips.
Mango and strawberry, 
sorbet kisses slather your face.

It’s no wonder you dropped 
your favourite dinosaur toy
and didn’t look back. 

Gerry Stewart is a poet, creative writing tutor and editor based in Finland. Her poetry collection Post-Holiday Blues was published by Flambard Press, UK. In 2019 she won the ‘Selected or Neglected Collection Competition’ with Hedgehog Poetry Press for her collection ‘Totems’, to be published in 2020. Her writing blog can be found at http://thistlewren.blogspot.fi/ and you can find her @grimalkingerry on Twitter.