Vox Populi
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Moudi Sbeity: Watching the Tall Burly Man at the Ice Cream Shop Lick His Cone
This might be what softens everyone to me,
what might eventually bring us all to the table.
I watched him walk away from the register,
all rough and tarnished, hard in the heart –
I could tell – even mad in the eyes, lifting the
cone to his slightly cocked head, tongue sticking
out, wiping itself in a swirl along the sugar spire.
How it humbles us all to the pleasing senses, and
nothing is wrong in the world from the moment
the angel behind the counter hands you the
creamed pacifier until you seal your lips around
the last lick, and for a short while after that.
~~~
Copyright 2025 Moudi Sbeity
Moudi Sbeity is a Lebanese American poet, writer, and psychotherapist based in Boulder, Colorado. Moudi’s first book, Habibi Means Beloved, a memoir on growing up queer and stuttering in Lebanon, is expected to be published in late 2026 by University of Utah Press.
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Bliss. The trips with children after games or high school dramatic performances where my late husband, Fred, ordered double scoops all around ( his—baseball nut) with grandchildren to the boogie weird flavors in mission beach, the place with foreign flavors near grandkids inner city school, the dairy free cherry garcia calling me from the fridge. Now I will read again to get another lick.
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Thank you Michael for sharing this poem. I woke up delighted to see it and then read the lovely comments ❤
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It is a wonderfully joyous poem, Moudi. We need your voice here.
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What a delicious & sweet way to start the day — and not only with this delight of a poem, but also in the different ways your readers react to this image. I can literally see that burly man, suddenly a child again during the first small, delectable tastes of sweetness in who knows how many days or weeks or months in his life…So many metaphors in this simple moment! How happy I am that I can always count on a poet showing me moments just as this one. And how pleased I am reading VP poets reacting to these moments — and from around the world!
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Thanks, Laure-Anne. It is always nice to discover a poet new to me.
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I love that you can see this tender man and his cone. I can still see the moment too, now made more special by the shared vision with everyone here.
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Flavorful poem. Oh, that the last lick will linger well beyond brain freeze. Being diabetic, I miss those sugar spires. But, once in awhile I sneak a short trip down ice cream’s rocky road. May do so soon, inspired by Moudi’s sweet tale.
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I do hope you get to safely enjoy a cone of your favorite flavor soon. Ice cream brings me such pleasure ❤
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Oh, may ice-cream cones proliferate! Love the poem and the idea.
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May they indeed! And the sharing of them, both ice cream and poems, with others.
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I won’t think of ice cream quite the same way again – ‘How it humbles us all to the pleasing senses’ and ‘creamed pacifier’ – oh yes, the sweetness beyond the taste. Thank you Moudi.
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Thanks, Jan!
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Thank you Jan, I love that line “the sweetness beyond the taste” – might be a poem waiting to be written by you.
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I really like the idea that ice cream, in individual cones—of course it can be different flavors or the same flavor— might bring peace to 8 billion 100 million human beings.
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Peace would be nice.
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Right? Let’s hope the solution is this simple ❤
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its high time for such a poem as this! The leveling moment of satiety and search for sweetness in the oft unlikely subject of humankind. There is mediation for winter cold in icecream, restores a little what the season steals and gives one a sense of escape. You should hear the cries across the land, of 300 cows and their calves ringing out hunger this time of year, listened from my writing desk before I go out and start dreaming solutions. By the light of this poem, I shall look for the strange loveliness of a frosted pasture and marvel how it stays in the tree shadows thrown by the rising light.
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This is beautiful writing, Sean. Thank you.
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I adore your Ben and Jerry’s confessional and the ten points. It all figures in, helps me through this tough moment of the year. Those frost shadows can only be seen because of the sheer treachery of the cold. So there’s still loveliness in anything, there’s still icecream!
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Thank you, Sean. Every day I look forward to seeing your comments here.
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Sean, thank you dear farmer poet. It delights me to imagine you in the pasture with the strange loveliness of your cow friends. I dream always of having a small farm and learning how to tend to the land and our kin. I grew up in a city and never learned, but somewhere in my heart I know this place as my true home.
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