Mango

Giant wooden salad bowl
up to its gunwales in
rolling green sweetness
grinds into the beach

Twin paddlers
wade in grinning to
hawk their fruit to
tourists spread on towels

They won’t sell them all here
but getting a better price
from the unsuspecting might
cover the cost of transport

To the market in town
and who knows maybe
the hostel will take them all
off their hands

Cool, soft and slightly
sticky to the touch
some so ripe their
cheeks are blushing

Others so green and firm
that when you strip away
the peel their golden hair
sticks between your teeth

Careful when you
bite into a ripe one
lest the juice run down
your arm onto your shoes

But ripe or not
no way to know
if this will be the one
to carry you to the

Heights of ecstasy or
dash you down in
swollen misery choking
on your own tongue

© 2014 Jim Ramsay, all rights reserved.