washing fruit to eat under a shady ginep* tree
in our stony-yard. Round and oblong.
we pile them in small heaps on burlap bags.
Some are green.
We shake or knock them down
with stones or long sticks.
They are hard and sour
and we clap tongues
to the roof of our mouths
to carry the taste down.
Some are yellow, ripe and sweet.
We plucked them from low branches.
Others are orange-red, full, fleshy.
We reach them by climbing,
or pick them up off the ground
where they had fallen overnight
while wrestling with the wind.
We slice the hard ones with knives,
rip soft skins with eager hands
and bite the head to make a hole,
press the skin to squeeze out yellow juice.
Teeth rake against the stringy fibre.
We suck them dry like Sukanah* ravenous for blood.
They become yellow straw on bare seeds.
We wear sappy golden moustaches and beards,
flaxen strands protrude from teeth.
We lick our lips, wipe our mouths
only to indulge ourselves again.
They were named long ago
by texture, taste and fibre.
Which is your favourite we ask?
Is it mango Julie, mango Thomas, mango Beth,
mango Marian, mango belly-full?
“When the mango season comes,
the housewife puts down her pot.”
We cannot resist. We indulge ourselves
in the ravenous gorging of yellow pulp.
When the season’s done and gone,
we are haunted by the smell
racing down our noses, the taste
lingering on our tongues and
the soft, smooth touch of the fruit
against our palms.
*Sukanah-mythical Caribbean creature that slips out of its human skin and flies around at night sucking the blood of innocent victims. It can be captured by salting its skin.
*Ginep-a tree that bears a small round green-skinned fruit. The fruit itself is a sweet-sour starchy pulp. It is also called Skin-up.
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