Poem

Mango

Delicious slivers of mango
cut like long tongues--so it's as if we eat
our passion, this longing

sticky like the afterglow of our sex,
with skin the reddish mottle of mango skin.
How often had I eaten these alone

bought at some Upper West Side bodega
and cut open with a pocket knife,
sitting at Riverside park, sunset

orange in the Hudson below:
sunset orange with a knife in it,
bleeding orange in my hands.

--Gerry LaFemina

Originally published in the Winter 2004-2005 issue of The Southeast Review.