Cassandra Whitaker

Church Ice Cream Social in July or The Summer I Awoke

The salted cream
already crowning with softness, the cone
eager for teeth, there is no excuse
for not licking, the steeple
against summer sundown provides shade
for those who desire; I want
as much as I can eat, mother
flutters with her hatred
of my body. Miss Davis understands
control, carefully placing her mouth
over what she fears will stain her
outfit. Into her mouth, one bite
at a time. “What a handsome young boy
you are, you’ll grow up big
with a body like that,” she loves
only what she can name
as her own. Miss Davis loves
her chocolate; the chorister sprinkles
candy on top, her red lipstick
the cherry on top. I leave
her at last, having counted to ten, a trick
to make sure I’m showing respect
to those who mark me, who touch me,
as if touching the body
of the preacher’s kid
is closer to Jesus
saying yes, yes,
you are loved. The weather stays pleasant
but hot. A breeze
licks the maple tops,
the oak trees flutter, each leaf
a butterfly about to take off,
the whole tree threatening to lift
up into the sky above the social.
I slip through my mother’s fingers, she shows
off my brother instead. Mr. Gibbs, tight
as a new button, fit
as a fist, hands me a bowl
of strawberries, the cream bubbles
around the red berry
whose face is that of a small child
in a snow patch field who doesn’t cry
when I eat his tiny head. His hand upon my shoulder
lingers. He knows I know
what it’s like to unname desire. His touch,
instruction. He stares
through my emptiness, Andrea
saves me, her buttered brown dress, so thin
light breaks through it
when she becomes sunlight’s wing; my heart
folds in half
as she reaches for syrup. Mr. Gibbs passes
on, touching another young man
from our group on the shoulder. Everything
is sticky. I wonder if one moment
in Andrea’s body would fix
thousands of hours that have laid waste
to my own loving. I feel, for a moment, that I am her
dress, right on the edge of a body
of thought, I am one thing, not
another. There is no excuse not to eat another
cone, to not continue eating ice cream. I could never
be Andrea. Mrs. Long, so pretty
it hurts to look, as if she were blue sky.
She tells me my shoulders are broad, like her
husband, her hand brushing the boniest part
of my upper body. She brushes my hair
out of my eyes with her index finger. The lawnmower
on the far far side of the park whines
far away. I fill a Styrofoam dish, drip syrup. Mrs. Johnson pinches
the sky, tosses a mosquito aside, licks
her cone, “my how handsome
you will be,” she says as she passes
by. The table stretches out,
at the end Mr. Fields spoons
his bowl with nuts, the excess catches
in his mustache, I wonder what it would be like
to lick it clean, hairy and sweet,
or sweet followed by hairy. Below him,
the table topped with silver
cylinders floating in ice buckets, or stationed,
churning the bottom, still, some
surrounded by dishes filled
with wishes, shattered candy, chocolate
chips, nuts and whipped cream, cherries
as red as my balloon heart blowing up, up, up. Pleasure
enters from all sides, more
arrives, seven peaches, a dozen
chocolates, vanillas subtle
as resentment, lemon as sharp
as the nails on Mrs. Patty’s fingers.
My eyes cannot linger long upon
their glory without the air
getting in, or toward Mrs. Long’s dresses
I want to caress, the blue
material scattered with flowers. Too much,
a kind of madness sets into my lips. Spinning,
on the heel of delight, ice cream, dresses, the perfume
of summer addresses magnolia, aster, rose,
dogwood, veronia, Andrea’s dress
flowing when she kissed
the worn old angel statued on some brick
column; heat lightning flashes, possibility,
a thin veil. It hangs like vapor.
The other side? Some free tall girl
with a spaghetti lope
and glasses as big as a pig
heart, pre- broken,
waiting like a bird
before dawn to sing
out, I’m here, right here
instead of waiting
like a chump, pinched and cued,
cooed at, what a handsome young man
he will become or shamed
by mother out of earshot, No.
Dear, not too much, watch
how you hold your bowl,
will you please pay attention
to your walk? You’ve eaten
too much again, I knew it,
I just knew. As if a twelve-year-old
could hold back the joy
that is a mouth
learning a new language,
a new singing, new songs.

Cassandra Whitaker (she/they) is a trans writer living in rural Virginia. Whit’s work has been published in Michigan Quarterly Review, havehashad, Conjunctions, The Mississippi Review, and other places. Their book, Wolf Devouring A Wolf Devouring A Wolf, is forthcoming from Jackleg Press in 2025. They are a member of the National Book Critics Circle. Wolfs-den.page