Dolce accelerando

By the time I get to North Beach, my skin is sliding against my skin

It’s late spring and hot, and the only thing I need is gelato—

Kahlua with dark chocolate chunks and chocolate-covered almonds—

so cold—milk coffee caramel thick, licked in the shade so slow.

I scrape the bottom, and I get up to walk back downtown.

I decide to have a cookie, too. I am so

vanquished that later I also gulp a peach

and feel that falling compulsion I know

from bodysurfing at Sandy Beach.

In salt surge and sugar siphon,

I stand and stroke while each wave

eats me up, foraging,

back-bending creature,

pushing the verge,

pushed below

one large

urge.

Craig Damlo