The Mango is the Shape of a Heart
Updated: Feb 19
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,