Like Thick Mango

I’m sitting under a palm tree. The ocean draped with palm leaves. I hear shoes, cars, waves. Leaves and wind. I’m hungry but content. A little hurried. Hurried to squeeze what I can from this moment. 

What would it look like to let it drip, stream, coat the mouth like thick mango? I’d take a bite and close my eyes. Let it fill my mouth and linger. 

I want to squeeze because I don’t want to go back because I want to sit here with this girl who disappears while I’m mothering. Partnering. Even while working. 

She’s young and wise. Slow. Dreamy. She comes with the breeze and the waves and with silence and aloneness and space. While I’m busy she walks beaches like this one looking for rocks and shells and things that make her eyes sparkle and want to share but also just want to keep being here now with the breeze.

It feels like an affair. 

I sit pining for our time together to linger always longer. Dream of the chemistry I might discover if I could coax her into the house with me, but I know she couldn’t. 

So dream of ways to visit her more each week. 

Wonder at the wisdom she has waiting to whisper if I can steal away to listen.

–Jeanne Wolz