(for my grandmother, Suraj Ba)
My father bought mangoes

(a dozen or so)

and we carried them home

in a gunny sack

filled with the dark

orange smell of ripeness –

my five year old mouth watered

as my father slapped the sack

down in front of my mother.

Her face did not change at the

sight of the fruit (now a bit sticky

and blackened in places,

sap seeping slowly through

small splits in the tender skins)

these were not the mangoes

she expected,

firm and smooth – ready to eat

in neat, sweet slices –

Yet her eyelids did not flicker

at this messy offering

and I watched as she

washed the sack carefully,

peeled each soft fruit

and rubbed the yellow flesh

on harsh hessian

till her knuckles grew red and raw

and the thick juice flowed

like a honeyed miracle –

enough to fill a pitcher and then some more –

And after that she rolled dough

into silky discs, slipped them

into sizzling oil

and lifted out puris –

small, golden balloons…
I have had eight decades of eating

and now my dry mouth tastes nothing –

but in the stillness of my dreams…

            I feast like a child

            on fried bread and mango juice…