The Anniversary Gift

by Carolyne Whelan

—when you woke me up midmorning,

put a pot of flowers on the nightstand,

set down two humble cups of coffee,

and handed me a mango.

It was hard and I held it with the same grip

I hold dreams when I awake to feel them

miscarrying inside me.

I don't know how to pick them, you said,
but it smells sweet, we can wait for it, I know
it will take you to a place set deep inside.
It was firm and unready, sapless, store-bought—
in Pittsburgh, there are no mango trees, no wild
nectar, but inside still is the need to taste.

In its thick skin, its tart flesh, is the moment

in Couva just before the winds, Laurence the bus driver
and I 
beneath the mango trees, hungry, picking

the hanging red and green bulbs with our eyes,

watching them bend those thin young boughs.

By our feet are mangoes bruised, rotting,
tree sap dripped on them like fossilized tears.
In my want, I reach down but Lawrence
directs me like a father against urgency.
We do not dig through these; we wait—
knowing what we want will come.



The mango is ripening now on my nightstand.
I will wake you up early tomorrow, when the sun crisps

in the far eastern angle of my room, almost shadowing us.

We will not use knives. We will not care

about the white sheets and the yellow mess of death,

the memory bitten into, the skin peeled back,


Laurence and I under the mango trees in the wind,
fruits falling like stars or dreams or your shoes kicked

off the side of the bed. Laurence and I

catch and laugh and yell. You and I

laugh and bite and suck. We will not worry.