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The van stood round the corner from school
by the green with the willow tree, making sure
we wouldn’t miss its ding-dong tune.
 
The other children queued to buy sculpted ice cream
with strawberry trails and a chocolate flake
that shattered at each bite.
 
My mother called it common. I sneaked
to my father’s wardrobe, that smelt of him
and leather and brilliantine and metal.
 
On the shelf stood neat brass towers
of threepenny bits. I ran a fingernail
down one of them, lifted the top coin.
 
My hand closed round it. Nobody
would know there was one short.
I fondled it in my pocket, tasting the sweet cold.
 

Susan Jordan

in collection Tasting the Sweet Cold, 2023, Mudlark Press,
ISBN 978-0-5565162-9-9