Toffee ice cream

This is to say that, when
I congratulated you the other day
for being vigilant about your intake of sugar,
I really meant it.

But for me we will probably always be
in that ice cream parlour, in a much too quiet suburb
in the days before my divorce.

I remember the flow of conversation—
all those new intimacies finding speech—
but mostly I remember the moment when
that rich, cold, clotted sweetness
insisted on spilling over the edge
of the bowl, until I lifted it
to my hungry mouth, and we both laughed,
signalling we were fine, still knew who we were.

As a child, the important thing about eating
was keeping my hands clean, or washing them
as soon as possible if all else failed.

Now here I was, my hands already sticky
with recent failure, bringing this bowl
of unearned sweetness closer to me,
to swallow one more bite
of this incorrigible,
mind-numbingly beautiful world,
and then another.

 - Jacques Coetzee