The mangoes are rolling across the marble counter, wobbling 

As toddlers learning to walk. 

 

The mangoes are reeling down the driveway toward the crooked 

Beige-rust mailbox. Grime on thick red skin. 

 

They bump over the curb and drop to the road. 

A pickup truck barrels toward the mangoes 

And we howl when the dusty tires smash them in glittering showers of gold.

Our foreheads glisten with mango-colored sweat in the summer swelter as we stare 

At mango-colored craters in the asphalt.

 

The mangoes are drops of heavy sunlight you can toss and taste. 

Bars of honey soap, they ease across our palms and shoot 

From our grasp. They slide and grind over sidewalk chalk.

 

Climb the aspen tree in the morning and drape a rope-tethered basket over the branches. 

Examine mushrooms after a rainstorm. 

Peel spirals off the mangoes until their amber blinds and bleeds.

 

Filth spreads on the glass table outside the basement door. Insect wings 

Gather in the sandbox. Time spears pinholes in the waterslide that can’t be

Patched with duct tape.

 

Hit a deer with your car. Hit a mango with your car. Destroy. Obliterate.

The mangoes are forgotten as childhood.

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©Kaylee Schuler