She says, Your English is great! How long have you been in our country?I say, Suck on a mango, bitch, since that’s all you think I eat anyway. Mangoesare what margins like me know everything about, right? Doesn’ta mango just win spelling bees and kiss white boys? Isn’t a mangoa placeholder in a poem folded with burkas? But this one,the one I’m going to slice and serve down her throat, is a mangothat remembers jungles jagged with insects, the river’s darker thirst.This mango was cut down by a scythe that beheads soldiers, mangothat taunts and suns itself into a hard-palmed fist only a few monthsper year, fattens while blood stains green ponds. Why use a mangoto beat her perplexed? Why not a coconut? Because this “exotic” fruitwon’t be cracked open to reveal whiteness to you. This mangoisn’t alien just because of its gold-green bloodline. I knowI’m worth waiting for. I want to be kneaded for ripeness. Mango:my own sunset-skinned heart waiting to be held and peeled, mangoI suck open with teeth. Tappai! This is the only way to eat a mango.