Downpour Dark Room
Thunder doesn't stop running bare foot to harvest
six ripe mangoes. We watch the back-lit Cuban tree frogs
climb the screens. We, too, are an invasive species here:
two males — stepfather and awkward stepson — released
from the strain of making conversation with these mourners, recounters,
familiars of my mother—the coven, coffee klatch, sangha —
filament, filament, filament of her flickering lamp, just to peel,
core, baste, broil, sauté, uncork—eat and drink to eat and drink—
in the almost anonymity of being without her, while they, the re-enactors,
at yoga, at divining secret fates and feelings, shine up the rainy dark
of the Florida studio. I hear her voice: If I ever got down on the floor I'd never
get up again . . . inside my head in that scrap of regret
she holds on by, endlessly describing never finishing
the painting of ripe fruit on a chipped blue plate.
mango flesh —
in the white porcelain sink
the cut sun bleeds
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