Strawberry Malts in Late April

Where do they sell strawberry malts
in late April,
when it always rains?
When the ice-cream stores close down
and plexiglass and pine-boards
greet the ghosts of children
in the evening, skipping
in the salt-breeze along the sidewalks.
The ocean isn't far
but it's late April,
and it rains often.
In summer,
napkins stained with
pistacio and fudge
line the gutters
mixed with gum wrappers
strewn with forgetfulness
like lost love letters,
sometimes sticking
like soggy,
sugar-smeared flags of surrender
to the soles
of contented girl's and boy's sandles,
waving below brightly colored pails
and shovels
spackled with sand and sea-water.
But now it is April,
and every day it rains
it's a wonder
the ocean doesn't engorge and swell
like a blue napkin
dripping with tears
washing away
the entrenched waste
of last August.

Though this silence,
one afternoon,
today
like any day of late April
there are
footsteps resonating
against the brick-lined apartment
complex facades
in empty echoes
and calling girls to their windows
to see what life
bears this sound to ricochet
in their air
like blue sparks
lighting up a storm-ready sky.

They see a boy
like an apparition
with a strawberry-malt
straw to his lips
smile turned to the sky
as though it bore sunbeams
on him alone

The girls watch him
through half-curtains
with wide enchanted eyes
They open their windows
to a surprising salt wind.
They think of the ocean
and the ice-cream shops
but watch the sky in fear
of what they know will come
yet cannot break the spell,
the wonder of the boy
with the Strawberry malt
and they want to ask him...

Where do they sell strawberry malts in late April?

-K.A.E.

(Para mi amigo, Felipe: el unico que conoce la respuesta.)