Mangoes

To eat a mango in the morning

is to end up tasting mangoes

all day long.  We live

in the middle of a mango grove

growing and harvesting them. 

And when they are ripe, we all work hard.

We work so hard that taking a break

with knife and fruit is a luxury

none of us have time for.

But my boy will not even taste one.

Only six, he pleads he does not like them.

"No, Papa, please.  I do not like them."

As if he could never forgive them

for being so much a part of his life,

perhaps the sweetest juiciest part.

To him I imagine it is

like shyly tasting your own flesh

after you accidently cut yourself. 

And you like it. 

You like it a lot.

- Vincent Peloso, published in The Steelhead Special, 1994