Fruta perdida

Fruta perdida

The old woman in Cuernavaca was glad her husband had died

and we laughed,

eyes wide on each other, mouths revealing set after set of exact-o edged teeth,

hot and honeysuckle words wrapping up, binding down our cool Iowa tongues

as her fast spit syllables tried to divine

¿tienes un novio?

I walk into the mornings and awaken as Yolanda peels me apart in her kitchen,

I taste papaya, swallow up mango, chew down peaches, wash away the taste of humid Spanish

in little jamaica waves,

I learn she is never done with me,

a plate of jitomates, juice of the cucumber,

aguacate and her words all eaten and disappearing

until I can feel them moving just below my skin

I kissed him first because I could

and he tasted like manufactured apples,

fake apples and syrup

we stayed that way until the female security guard found us under un árbol,

and I could only think that at least I wasn’t wrapped around him,

like a kid straining for higher branches

There was an announcement next morning before classes,

and through bites of my apple I wiped the sweat from above my lips,

He didn’t look at me, prefiguración if there ever was any,

and I was laughing somewhere inside at my response,

my last profesor had wanted to know if I had ever been in love, after all

I tasted all of it, the thinly sliced fruit disrupting the clean lines of Yolanda's white plates

before I picked them up, held the sensitive piel between my fingers, devoured wholes hungrily—

Just as soon, he ate himself up and became too full to have room left over for me,

the other girl was shorter, anyway

We left Mexico, land of the whitewashed tree,

and of the things I forgot, I was most sad about my sweat,

my phone, and my illusions about the flavors of fruit

Months on months looking like mouths on mouths, and now it is later and I start my mañanas

with apples and pears,

mostly misshapen, mostly bruised,

and I’m always tired with them in my mouth, not swollen with moist Mexican air,

but holding up form and solid,

reminding me of other tongues and a question I still won’t answer

I like to tease out the thought that perhaps one day dining services will come upon

a shipment fresh from Mexico, plátanos, strawberries and clementines,

and at breakfast I will spoon onto my plate beautiful golden slivers of pineapple,

except this time, el sabor will be real,

and my taste will come back from that hot and honey city where it got lost in the first place