Ripe with a
Malfeasance
That threatens
To engulf me
Whole

Round, full
and yellow
With that lingering
Scent
An inviting sweetness
To bite
Into juicy flesh

You’d buy them for me
And I’d reject them

Only to take
them home
Reluctantly,
If only to stop
You from eating
Them
and hurting
Yourself

Your colon
Can’t take it
The two operations
The growing cancer
pushing into
Your peritoneum

When you eat mangoes
your intestines get blocked
And your pain escalates

The morphine
at home doesn’t work
You need a breakout dose
That can only be administered

In hospital

And so you’ve gone
8 times and counting
Because you keep forgetting (or ignoring)

You must not eat mangoes

They don’t stop you,
and Merlinda has no fire
I’m not there all the time
And they don’t listen

You live each day
With a distant impressions
Of what happened before

Your memories revolve
Around your glory days
As a young woman

The mangoes would get dark
And spotted in my fridge

I’d toss them out
When they grew black

But then instead
Of letting them go to waste
I started serving the mangoes
To my guests
along with wine and cheese

They like it, so do I

Now
I buy them for myself
Because you
Don’t insist on buying them
anymore

I think of you
As I cut them
Open
And breathe in

Their sweetness