Green Mangoes
by and published in Edition Four of Pomegranate
I remember green mangoes fresh and
Salty fetched down from the two-storey tree
By my neighbours’ laughing ayah, as young then
As I am now. She whacked at them,
Plump green teardrops, with a bamboo pole
And we kids scrambled down to pick
The mangoes off the ground, (they were hard as pebbles)
To eat them at the living-room table
With a snowfall of salt, biting sour
Not too many, for our mild baby stomachs
Watching them so steady and curved like cheekbones
Twist and dangle and finally fall
At the hands of Saroj.
I saw them again
So many years later, yesterday, at the end
Of this tenure, out a white-framed window
Giving over manicured grounds
Sitting sleepy (slow-hearted, friendly
Supine sleepy, words drifting and laughter magnified)
At her desk “Did you know you have a
Mango tree outside?” I asked, as though the one
Who rides in air-conditioned cars, whose palms
Have never known the stain of henna could not
“Come in the fall, when they’re ripe, and
You can have some!” she replied
When they’re swollen up with sunrise
Mimicking pink to the underside, warmly yearning
Captured summers, straining for manifestation as
We worship the aquamarine and the blistering May sun
Our ways are paved.
We were unripe once, you know
Eating the white fruit and green husk
Laughing like children, in the hot drift of chlorine
Cloistered by the teeming trees.
Beth Erwin
Beth Erwin is 19 years old and currently in her first year at Durham University, where her interests include marvelling at supermarkets and quiet cobbled streets after having lived half her life in India. She is inspired by the strange, diverse expatriate world she grew up in and loves all kinds of fresh fruit, including pomegranates.