This is how you love me
three mint chocolate chip scoops tall--
don't forget my brother's birthday

Age is a thing measured
by ice cream flavors and 
our finger smudges
on the glass case at the 
Premise Maid Creamery. 
My brother and I believed
in ice cream cauldrons--
Believed in cones for birthdays--
Imagined white back rooms with wooden
spoons-- They needed 
step ladders for 
the elves who mashed tasty-cakes
with their hands long after
midnight-- shaking the
walls with bells and candied
pecans-- grew rainbow sprinkles
from tiny clay pots like the other
herbs- spearmint and sage
each scoop shimmered with 
crumpled fairy finger nails 
and gold shaved from goose
eggs. The ice cream was guarded by 
the dark eyebrows of nut crackers--
Marched back and forth behind the
counter to protect the clerks
in paper crowns-- The nut crackers were
the only ones who knew the recipes
by heart-- kept instructions 
painted beneath their uniforms--
They took snack breaks
and fed waffle cones to the geese
It was my brother's birthday so 
we held candles above our ice cream cones--
wiped icing from our noses--
what about the flavors? and
will you read them to me?
Everyone who has ever truly loved
me has read me lists of ice cream flavors--
Down every label until something
caught me-- strike me cinnamon bun
and kiss me cherry garcia--
I always found my way back 
to mint chocolate chip--
I used to believe it tasted like
places I'd never been but that I wanted
to go-- like winter windows and comfort 
in the knowledge of Santa Claus--
knowing he was keeping track of everything
with a quill pen and a parchment scroll--
gun-fire spritz cookies and the 
gingerbread house the aunts sent
us to live in until we peeled
it gum-drop bare and royal icing wrinkles--
crunched down walls as a family of
Allosaurus after New Years--
You ask me how old I was and I'll
tell you I was Georgia peach--
I was Peanut butter tin roof sundae--
part of me is still mint 
chocolate chip your little girl-body
stacked three scoops tall--
and I hadn't known my ribs  
would stop me from scooping
December from a ice cream cauldron--
There is no fat in fairy finger nails
I can't measure my age in ice cream anymore--
it's meant for the winter windows 
and tongues that recognize
the consistency of gold goose eggs--
It's still my brother's birthday-- 
Do you believe only fathers 
understand a banana split?--
because mine father sure did--
and I could never learn to
stack myself outside of a waffle cone--
We waited for the
Toll toll toll of the chocolate clock--
cracked by the teeth of another
two-year-old girl learning what
December tastes like-- learning
how to spell her name on the labels
of the freezer case-- plucking
sprinkles from the herb pots--
I would mark my height in three
scopes of mint chocolate chip
ice cream-- my brother would
eat birthday cake from a cone--
and the nut crackers would take 
their snack break to steal ruby cherries from
our father's banana splits--
Yes everyone who has ever loved
me has known my name in ice cream--
what will you call me? Wait.
Let me read you the labels--
I'll start with cherry garcia
and tell me to stop when
I get to you--