There’s a graft
of long mango and starch
in the backyard on Turton street
that I’ve never climbed—
we could pick them from the stairs.

There are words
for them, these mangoes vert,
beads bending
heavy on these peeling limbs,
rough, undone like lepers.

We, like Carrera’s nuns,
caress with little stretches
over the banister.
We, something more
than the unrefined.

We look for salt
and colored capsicum,
only a little water
(because the sliced pieces will spring).

But then, careless
as laughter, we also fleshed
the bleached golliwogs’
heads of pomme cytheres.