Mango
Father tells his girl on the telephone
he needs to see the sky
He stands in the yard
with a long dull saw,
daylight darkening
above the stratum of leaves.
His mango tree understands.
It imagines itself
hemispheres and years away,
where the mango grows giddily,
rife, where the skin
flushes tender yellow.
Here it sallow’s in the sun,
and the tongues that taste it
Romanticize its name. Father draws
the silver edge across its side.
Down the street, his mother dreams
of her firstborn son, body ashed
and scattered seaward.
She tells herself: one day
he’ll wash ashore like a smoothed glass bottle.
She walks through the meadow
of memory, ambles through moods
like pangean continents. She calls
the father by his brother’s name,
confusing their J’s in her heart’s hunger.
The mamey tree stands, safely stout.
The mango hinges from its chiseled base.
Cool red stars bloom clear
through the gossamer overhead.
Papa says he’s got to finish this
before the light goes. His voice wavers
like the blade. The call is cutting loose.
She says, I know, I know.