Mango Fetish
'When mango season comes,
the housewife puts down her pot.'
We pluck them, yellow, orange, red,
off low branches, pick them up
from the ground where they fell after
wrangling with the wind.
Hunched over on boulders under a tree,
we wash round, oblong mangoes and
pile them in small heaps on burlap bags.
We slice green mangoes
knocked down with stones and sticks,
lick the sour fruit and clap tongues
against the roofs of our mouths.
We bite, tear flesh, and squeeze soft skins.
Yellow juice fills our mouths and we wear
sappy, golden moustaches and beards.
Named long ago by texture and fibre, we devour
mango Julie, mango Thomas, mango Beth,
mango Marian, mango Belly-full.
We cannot resist gorging on yellow pulp.
Flaxen strands protrude from teeth.
We lick our lips, wipe mouths
only to indulge ourselves again.
Like Sukanah ravenous for blood,
we suck the fruit dry.
Althea Romeo-Mark, 2007-2010
From JIGSAW 2010, anthology of Writers Works Bern, Switzerland
* 'When mango season comes... ' is a West Indian proverb.
* Sukanah, in Caribbean folklore, is a creature related to the vampire. It travels in human form during the day and sheds its skin at night to fly into houses and suck the blood of its victims. In order to kill the Sukanah, you have to salt and thereby shrink its skin so cannot fit into it again.
See also 'soucouyant', at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribbean_folklore, accessed in Sept. 2010.
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