especially sweet ice cream

my first ice cream cone
i had in paris
in a park

it came from a box on wheels
pushed by a man who looked like someone in a children's book
a man with a cap and a wrinkled face and a cart which was a box
with wheels and inside
was ice cream

and the noises of Paris in the park
and the faces of european children and grownups, so different than americans in those days
and the taste of the melting ice cream folding into my tongue in sheets of thick, cool delicious wonderment
are merged in one sensate memory
permanently defining pleasure