I drive by and sigh with longing,
as if passing a mausoleum,
which it is, in a way—

the rectangular white building
once home to booths and a lively
counter tended by teenaged servers,
ice cream scoops at the ready.

Now it’s silent, abandoned, the man
whose last name it bore long gone,
its parking lot filled with cars of
shoppers at Trader Joe’s next door.

So many of my dead loved ones
are entombed here—my beloved’s
mother who loved the fresh turkey
Jim Burr roasted daily for sandwiches,
chunky bits piled high on sourdough,
adorned with a frill of lettuce, mayo,
jellied cranberry sauce if you
wanted it, dill pickles on the side.

My best friend who’d snare
the corner booth if she arrived first
would order my favorite Jik Jak
frost, a shake-like concoction
delivered in a tall fluted glass designed
for sundaes, a scoop of the chocolate
malt-laced ice cream drooping down
the side.

So many older neighbors arrived
sometimes daily for lunch and fellowship
with others they’d known in town
for decades. All gone now.

A couple of enterprises attempted
a comeback there, but none went far.
It’s an old building. It must need
a complete redo.

I walked by yesterday on my way
to buy groceries and stopped
to peer in a spot of window to
take in the cavernous emptiness,
the counter, the booths vanished
to that place where ice cream parlors
of yore must go,

where I hope to land when I leave
my body behind, walking in to take
a seat on a swivel-y stool at the counter,
Jim himself turning from his post
at the sandwich station, nodding
and asking, as if he didn’t know,
“Jik Jak frost?”

And me giving the only possible
response: “Yes, please.”