(a poem in one act, circa 1951)

He couldn’t get
the screw cap off
the bottle of root beer.
He struggled and
struggled but he
couldn’t get it off.
He had a large glass
full of vanilla ice cream
but no root beer.
It did not get him
down. He had vanilla
ice cream in a glass –
a dry root beer float –
instead. “Sometimes
life’s like that,” he said
to himself, “no root beer
for your float”. The
old man sighed and
ate his plain ice cream.
While he ate he called
Ernest Hemingway
to share
his story.