|
Mango
by Leslie Ann Eisenberg
1
My dearest Sands
stands in the barracks,
teaching me how to eat
my first mango
Our mouths suck hairy
remains off the hard,
white seed, his favorite
heterosexual fantasy
2
Every mango cut
must be deliberate
slice matching hemispheres
from the green globe
and skinny crescent moons
that hug the heart
Cross hatch all four,
turn them inside out
3
We collide through the market
in a red, rented scooter
overturning apple carts
oversized coconuts bruise knees
mangoes bean heads like bullets
as we make our escape
4
Ripe fruit fills a bowl
on the analysts desk
mango pulp mourns
bananas fear bulimia
danjou pears dream of flying planes
as fifty minutes tick
5
Piled pyramid high
in the produce aisle
perfectly poised for plucking
The only ripe mango
Is in the 14th row
6
Slowly she gums a mango smoothie
blended by the caretaker
pulsing orange syrup
drips down her
trembling toothless mouth
7
diesel fumes and beetle dung
tattoo the jungle floor
sweaty sunburnt backs
toss mangoes on a truck
8
First lights rigid face
breaks
when I slice my morning mango
comfort lies in this
twelve year ritual
every creamy bite is calm, cool, reverie
remember beauty
remember, there is love
remember
Sands
03/29/2004
Author's Note: In the style of Wallace Steven's "Blackbird," as in -- Eight ways of looking at a ______. Each stanza, ideally, should work as a stand alone poem. (You are here on earth with me every morning, angel, especially when I get a hairy orange one from Manila!)........
Posted on 03/30/2004
Copyright © 2025 Leslie Ann Eisenberg
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Jolie Jordan on 03/31/04 at 03:56 PM mmm.. my favorites, I think, would have to be 1 & 6, but all of them are amazing (by themselves, and as a whole!) what a sweet, syrupy summery/lust-filled piece. makes me want to have the sun beating down on my neck:) |
| Posted by Ashok Sharda on 04/01/04 at 03:08 AM Eight independent snap shots with one common element-MANGO. The experience seems intense enough to register these impressions which definitely must have created a lasting association.The back drop is diferent, the MANGO species are different, but the association mango has registered and internalized so deep, and so alive, remains the same. It will always begin with 'My dearest Sands' who taught you 'how to eat
.... first mango' and shall always lead you to 'remember beauty
remember, there is love
remember
Sands' MANGO isn't just mango here. It has transcended its mangoness by associating it self with vibrations so beautiful.
|
| Posted by Michelle Angelini on 06/10/05 at 07:13 AM Leslie, you do Wallace Stevens much credit. I know I've read his poem before, but now I'm going to have to read it again. You know that you have to eat the last part of the mango over a sink or outdoors - it's no fun unless the juice drips down you chin and bits of mango get all over your face and fingers. ;-)
~Chelle~ |
|
