When the Seed Spans the Length of the Fruit

When Sarah Vaughan pipes from the great American songbook,

I forget time is dragging my body from one shore of grief  to another.

My pointed fingernail traces the surface of  the mango

bottom to top, presses the point to the body’s softest part.

Incises the yellow-gray skin until I’ve perforated a line

to peel just below the skin where the flesh is thready.

I try not to think of how stringy Carole’s hair was

during the chemo, prefer the strips of pulled flesh

to be as neat as possible. I’m trying not to make this

a poem about death, or about this fruit being the fruit

of my people. In my mouth it’s  just a mango.

I tear off  the skin for as long as I can resist the first bite.

The afternoon Clara and I fucked sideways

beneath a table while our meal cooled, she smiled

when she said, you don’t fuck like an American.

I paused. What had the largess of my body revealed

to her about my multiplicity? That no matter where I flee,

even inside her arms, my grandmothers’ sorrows follow?

One cast out of  the family tree by patriarchy,

the other simply unsatisfied by what this life had to offer.

It’s become increasingly difficult not to make this

a poem about violence. I thrust my teeth into the flesh

every time I close my eyes, my mouth is open. I dive

into it with my tongue, my teeth shredding

the mango, not even half undressed. A gesture less

about desire than appetite: the inability to wait for its

entire nakedness before shoving it into a mouth. Anything

can be a mouth. I can only withstand beauty in pieces.

I gorge on fragments, always requiring something

between myself and my latent neediness. It’s not the void

if  you can’t broach it with your entirety. Do women marry

for love or for documentation that they tried, at least once,

were willing to sacrifice their bodies and minds in service

of  being good. A Pisces myself, I leave before I am told

they don’t love me anymore. I leave the moment there’s

no love detected. There is no contract for this,

no instrument or even unit of measurement

beyond a seed.