Mangoes

mangoes are sweetest when they are soft

when they drip juice through your fingers and soak your mouth in summer

they are sunshine and swimming pools

childhood holidays spent with halmoni and halaboji far from home

where the heat stuck to your hair and

warm rain danced in gutters as it burst from the sky

the sweet treat after chicken rice dinners unwrapped from banana leaves

we fought for the seed when we were little

not satisfied with fleshy cheeks we tore at its core

hands sticky and oozing

a mangle of honey sweet joy dripping down chins and elbows to the plastic table cloth below

somewhere between wild abandon and responsible adult i began eating mangoes differently

the shift came quietly

the mess, my dress, the sheer inconvenience

its sweetness a bother when pristine clean shirts could be ruined

But mangoes are still sweetest when they are soft