Poetry: Whipped Cream Acumen By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Whipped Cream Acumen

 

Our babysitter

on Bernick Drive

was fun.

 

She let us stay up late,

watch movies we were not supposed to,

and always did this trick 

with the whipped cream

cannister.

 

Putting the nozzle to her mouth

and draining the entire thing 

without stopping.

 

She did it with ease,

never struggling.

 

What she demonstrated 

was special skill,

but my little brother and I 

were both still very young

so we laughed our

asses off.

 

I remember 

my stomach hurting 

from honest

hilarity.

 

Then she'd put the empty cannister

back in the side door

of the fridge.

 

My parents 

must have wondered 

why they couldn't keep

the whipped cream 

in stock.

 

Perhaps

they blamed each other

like they did for

 

everything

else.

 

 

 

 

 

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Horror Sleaze Trash, Rusty Truck, Red Fez, Fixator Press and The Oklahoma Review. He enjoys listening to the blues and cruising down the TransCanada in his big blacked out truck.