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A House of Mangoes

How many mangoes does it take to build a house
Of fibrous walls through which fingers float and secrets echo?
With hollow chambers carved out of breaths that lingered too long
On foreign skin with juice dribbling down one’s chin
Of hidden lamps shrouded in red cotton cloth
Covered in shadows of forgotten smiles and blood stained tears

A house of forbidden fruit tasted too many times
By the innocents and the dead who wander its walls
And see not the windows between the leaves encasing the flesh
Where rivulets run around the roots that dampen the walls
With no pictures but faces that remember too much
And know too little, but see again

A house that ripens and smells too sweet
Of pulpy hearts now soft to the touch, and begins to weep
As it melts like tender meat off the bone
Into the mouths of waiting babes it slides
And is silenced by the blessing
Of the foundations that shiver and the roots that turn their heads
Upwards to the heavy fruit hanging from the boughs
So the house is built again

Artwork by Geo Ramzes

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