This… prose poem I guess?… is heavily influenced by Meryn Cadell’s The Sweater. https://youtu.be/JFfy0dMKIi8
It was requested by Amy who wanted a poem about drinking a cream soda that looks like a beer.
Girls, I hope you will understand
How this moment feels.
You have just gone into an American diner themed cafe and ordered a cream soda.
By yourself.
Now you’ve had cream soda before, having read about it in books about American teenagers who you really really want to be
But it came in a big plastic bottle from when you begged your mum to buy some in Tesco and she said well if nobody else likes it you’ll be finishing it because I’m not wasting money on something you’re gonna have one glass of and let it go flat.
It tasted of candy floss and American dreams.
Nobody else liked it.
But you’ve walked past this cafe before and it looks like somewhere that an American girl would meet an American boy for ice-cream and then go to a movie and hold hands and talk about going steady and whether she’d wear his class ring.
And yes, it is next to a Gregg’s but you won’t let that ruin your Judy Blume Beverly Cleary retro teenage fantasy even though you’re not technically a teenager yet and everyone else at school says those books are old and sad.
You don’t have enough money for an ice-cream or a burger or anything
But you saw cream soda on the menu
And it’s more expensive than the big two litre bottle was but you’ve just about got enough to pay and you pretend it’s in quarters and dimes when you hand it over to the woman in the cherries and lipstick 1950s dress you want to own so much you almost cry.
You sit on a stool.
At the counter.
The woman in the amazing dress brings you a bottle and a glass and pops the lid off with a bottle opener and…
The cream soda isn’t cream coloured like you were expecting
It’s a rich golden colour with bubbles like tiny points of light
And the glass bottle it came in is tall and slick with condensation from the old fashioned American style refrigerator which you will not refer to as a fridge.
And the glass is heavy with angles and glinting light
And you carefully pour your expensive brown cream soda into the heavy glass
And all your dreams of sock-hops and drive-ins and going steady suddenly melt away.
This cream soda
Looks like
Beer.
Suddenly you’re not an All American teenage girl hoping to meet your dreamboat boyfriend for a chaste date
You’re a bad kid, a rebel who wears leather jackets and ruby lipstick and a permanent scowl.
You’re sitting alone drinking beer and later you’re probably going to go shoplifting and all the teachers who always call you such a helpful, polite young lady will sigh and shake their heads and say whatever happened to her?
You look out of the window.
Narrow your eyes.
You’re trying for sultry rebellion but the reflection tells you that you just look constipated and confused.
You sip your beer
Your cream soda
It tastes of warm caramel popcorn and hugs from a slightly older boy who sure would like to lend you his letterman jacket
And now that whole fantasy comes flooding back and you kick your legs on the tall stool and laugh and the waitress laughs and says did you know you can spin around on that and you do and you laugh so hard cream soda comes out of your nose and the waitress has to get you a napkin.
And you know that really, you’re not a cool American teenager
And the cream soda which isn’t beer will never make you look like a cool teenage rebel
But in 3 months you’re going to be some kind of teenager anyway and you suddenly realise that you get to decide what kind and you haven’t asked for anything for your birthday yet.
You ask the waitress
Where she got her dress.
Tom Juniper Poetry 