The Mango is the Shape of a Heart

When you were younger,

you used to pick at the flesh

surrounding your fingernails

until you wounded yourself

because it gave your hands something to settle on,

instead of paging through old story books

filled with the histories of your people-

sometimes you catch yourself

peeling away the layers

of your own skin

in the fruit section

of Ranch 99

reminded of the women before you,

Pinang, a young girl turned to the first pina, 100-eyed and flighty

Aganhon, her buried heart of sorrow, mango-sweet as youth

The unnamed angel to Mang Selo, wise and affable, forever immortalized

with her fingerprints upon the bruised and brown skin of lansones

They were the true pearls of the orient.

You are no longer young, and yet the feeling of

stumbling blind into the darkness,

arms waving desperately,

still follows you into the fray of a well-lit life

more than it ever did in childhood.

You can recount a million anecdotes- why the piña has 100 eyes,