my abuela had a mango tree,
a forest of golden earrings – she would tell me
that these mangos used to fall faster than her hands
could catch them – thudding onto the grass, splitting
their skins, flesh bruising sweetly where they struck, gold giving way
to gold. over the sink, she would cut them into pop-up book squares,
pressing the skin until it turned inside-out, each cube gone by the mouthful,
our teeth dragging against the rind – fibres catching, juices pooling into the
creases of our hands, its skin slipping, soft and sugared, sap sticking to our
fingers, dripping down our wrists into slow, shining lines we would not wipe away,
and we would not give in until our teeth had sunk into the very core of it –
the pit turning in our hands, slick, stubborn, still sweet. the scent of the kitchen
was rinsed in the shedding of a wrung, orange shine, peels slumped in the sink,
nothing left but light – our eyes would shut as we devoured delicately
the entrails of its pulp, all of it bathing us with its yellow nectar for as long
as we’d allow it, no rushing – stay with it, she would say, let it paint you
in its incantation of summer, drink it as a ravenous river would drain the sky
of its reflection – this is how you learn to be passionately
consumed, for there is no love
without mess.