~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Luke Sawczak

Dairy Queen

Texas has the most Dairy Queens of any state,

but Minnesota has the most per person.

Anyhow, in heaven—and in hell—

everyone gets a Dairy Queen.

A whole restaurant exists for you.

When you go in, there’s a nervous trainee

whose top reveals bare shoulder bones,

someone who could be her aunt

muttering and bustling around her,

and a miscellaneous teenager grilling burgers.

In heaven, you don’t know why Dairy Queen makes burgers.

You wouldn’t eat one—unless you had to.

In hell, Dairy Queen is the best burger joint.

You order a Blizzard, and choose the wrong flavour

because every flavour is the wrong flavour.

Girl Guide-Inspired Cookies & Cream™.

You are looking forward to it. There will be a little

plastic spoon. The ratio of handle to bowl of the spoon

will be high. It will be possible to turn the cup

upside down—this will be a selling point.

This sort of thing is the same in heaven and hell.

You are looking forward to it.

You pay by cash or card, cash if you have a bill

in your wallet from your last time at a street festival.

It was on Earth—the sun was beautiful, and the rain no less.

Trainee and manager disappear behind a wall,

a minute later the girl’s sent back out. She holds aloft

the Blizzard. As you reach, she rotates her wrist and the cup

stands for a moment, the picture of an angel,

frozen in its fall from heaven. Not a drop is spilt.

The action is quick, it had to be fit in before you took it,

and moments hold almost no motion.

She hands it to you with a tiny smile, as if to say

I don’t know the reason for this ritual either.

Like writing in a card that no one’s going to read,

like calling the priest “father,” or sacrificing

virgins to the dragon threatening the village,

one turns over Blizzards.

Sometimes when you’re leaving it’s you

who without thinking wishes a good day

to the soul behind the counter. They seem,

then, at a loss for words. You have never

had an intimate conversation in your life.

Everyone else is in their own Dairy Queen.

This trainee will later go to her Dairy Queen.

The manager and the teenager to theirs.

And you, you sit alone in the back, or on the curb,

where the sun is bright and the ice cream melts

as you scoop your Blizzard up, in heaven or in hell.

Luke Sawczak is a teacher and writer in Toronto. His writing has appeared in more than 25 publications, including Sojourners, Acta Victoriana, Queen’s Quarterly, New Contrast, and Ekstasis. In his spare time he composes for the piano.