Till Receipt (Pudsey Leisure Centre)

Cherries so glossy and red
with syrup
Droplets of unguent juice
Cascading down
a twelve scoop wonder, pastel colours;
pistachio green, cappuccino, bubble gum, slush-puppy-blue-raspberry, 
below the grey-green mossyness of the ice-cold North Sea,
crash-crashing on the Demerara sand
of a misty beach in the British summer.

Sitting up on a hill in the wind blown scrub,
sheltering behind a gorse in golden-yellow bloom
Ice cream in hand
ice cream van on the road above us.
Green-sleeves never sounded so sweet.

Looking down-hill at the crazy golf course.
The little putts and courses,
flags fluttering on miniature stone bridges
and little buildings painted ultramarine and salmon.
And far below the road
And the funicular going up and coming down.

The sea a graphite smudge in the far distance
Tiny trotting donkeys
Dots on the sand
Are isolated family dramas
Veiled in drifts of rain.

The ice cream, in waffle cone is
Starting to melt.
And dribble down my hand.
I wipe it off with a Pudsey Leisure centre till receipt
I found in my pocket.

The letters, S11 9RX hastily scribbled down one side,
Now with water-colour-effect the numbers disintegrate to a purple-brown cormorant,
And I wonder to myself again, “am I a seven or a four?”

Stealthily catching a rivulet of
mint-choc-chip-coconut-praline on my tongue.
Looking out of the side of my glasses to see if anyone noticed and
Gathering my beautiful violet mac, ill-fitting as it is,

more closely around me.

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