Ghazal for Fabiola ~ Roxanna Cardenas Colmenares

Remember the last time we ate mangoes?

You liked them green, and I ripened, yet we both salted the mangoes.

The hairy pulp was all over our teeth, and

we complained. What a pain to eat mangoes.

But my favorite time was just that:

Us, running to your backyard, fetching mangoes,

filling our stomachs with fruit because there was no rice or meat,

only the solemn tree’s seeds wrapped in the mangoes.

I told you I was leaving while you looked for the salt—that last time—

and I made you a promise: I’ll return as soon as that man goes

away with his crimes, like separating us.

Eight years have passed, and I have forgotten the taste of your mangoes.

I have forgotten the softness of your skin, the way your hair moves in the wind.

I have forgotten your scent, but I bet it smells like salted mangoes.

I have forgotten the streets that lead to your house, where the giant tree awaited.

It never once got upset that we stole its mangoes.

I have forgotten the sight, taste, and smell of the country I grew up in, of the people I loved there.

I haven’t forgotten my name is Roxanna, the exiled Venezuelan who loves ripe, salted mangoes.

~~

R. Cardenas Colmenares is a Brooklyn-based writer and poet who loves horror and speculative fiction but has a soft spot for heartfelt literary fiction. Her short fiction and essays have been published in student literary magazine The Guild, and her poetry appears on BigCityLit and Poetry in Performance. Originally from Venezuela, her work often features Spanish words and references to her culture.