A bit like a mango

Papai cuts the mango into little squares

Like teeth and bricks and turtles’ backs. He’d like to

Suck the juice off his fingers but doesn’t.

Water moves the yellow fibers off his hands,

The fibers that he’d rather have sucked like noodles.

My sister naps on the couch, she is

Soft, white, a little blushed. Puffy at the cheeks

And mouth. A white peach, curled and settled

In a bowl for a still life.

Mamãe and I eat the mango squares at the kitchen counter.

Mamãe says the mango’s too ripe.

It’s always too ripe. She says something

And laughs up some sugar,

Her big front teeth like the bricks and turtles’ backs

We eat.

Papai eats standing. My sister’s eyes flutter,

Her waking lips butter

With a lick followed by

An unraveling of arms, of roots.

She’s sweet and awoken and always ready

To eat.

My skin has a bit of green,

And now, in the summer, a flush of red.

The louder voice, the eyes that curl

With a smile, the words –

That are bright and unclear,

That are difficult to see but easy to taste –

All suggest I’m blown with yellow.

A bit like mango, a bite like me.