MANILA MANGO

The Manila mango drips faster than my lips can catch it; in the manner of a Gauguin Tahitian portrait. The native girl with bare breasts points her eyes to the syphilitic man stealing her soul for art. “The bitch, she is,” he could tell his shipmates, “when she refuses my advances.” Another downcast look to her father, the chieftain, who moans when he sees her. The bitch, she is, for not coming home when she was told.

 

The sky is never gray and can’t help but shrivel the fruit—if only there were some clouds to push out at it. But clouds would just dissolve in the ocean’s glare. At least there’s golden mango skin stretched over sweet flesh, honeying sap as it breaks.