RINA GARCIA CHUA

They put stickers on the mangoes here, I'd say,
and I can imagine the grunt

of displeasure from your throat. "Imagine" —
since I sometimes now forget

the sound of your voice. These mangoes
from the South taste good—

only it's not quite there yet. They're sweet
enough to impale the craving

for un-stickered mangos sold on the side
of the road or plucked atop

out roof, or rotting on the ground.
I once balked when you

picked a stray mango on the cement road
and peeled it open, its yellowing

flesh protruding out into the smog—green
at the edges, not quite there yet.

You took a bite and encouraged me to taste
but I refused, on the grounds

of knowing how dirty the city strects are.
Your fingers, thrillingly clean,

held the fruit. They were stubby and short,
with a hint of manicure, to pretend

you care for your exterior. We both know,
you only cared for the inside,

and when I did give in, for who says no
to a mother who is departing

again in a couple of days to a foreign country,
I bit the green yellow-y flesh

of this street mango and it was sour and bitter
and maybe almost sweet

and it was also the taste of your fingers, your skin
I cannot forget inside the pit of me.

Years later, I fulfilled a pilgrimage to the island
of mangoes; this island born by fire.

Every crook of the road was lined with evergreens,
green fruits hanging beneath

the lanceolate clumps, not quite ready yet. I feasted
on mango pizza and rejected a famous

writer's advances with a wry smile (we "happened"
upon each other on this random island).

That's where Obama gets his mangoes, you exclaimed on
the phone. I wondered why you never

toured this part of the country—maybe its too close
to the home, and war, you escaped

for a chance to wear the flag and fly the skies. Sticker-
less, oblong-shaped mangoes lined the markets,

and I haggled for the best ones to take home to you.
Eight long, short, years ago, I called

you up and complained about the mango shake
I bought downtown:

It doesn't taste like OUR mangoes. You promised
to buy me a bundle when I come back.

It's been almost five years since I've been back—
I haven't seen what's left of you in ashes

or the urn we picked off Facebook to keep you intact
for the next decades of our lives without you.

I've craved these new mango variants with an insatiable
predilection. I can only buy four at a time,

maybe twice a month, because they're $1.75 each, and who
affords that on an adjunct salary.

Still, I buy them, wondering who decided to migrate
the pits of our mangoes to the South

of this continent to cultivate them here. How long.
did it take for them to taste sweet enough—

but not quite there yet? Maybe it's the soil they grow
in; maybe it needs the equator's sun

or the seven volcanoes that forged an island.
Yet, they're grown and packaged with small

stickers to remind us that they're Products of Mexico
and not of my country—another invisible

line that we draw across oceans. I ought to stop
craving these expensive variants and save

money for coming back and cradling your urn.
Perhaps I'm not quite there yet—

I'm still holding on to the tiniest reminders
of you before it becomes real.

Before it becomes good enough, ready enough,
sweet enough to let go.