Yokemate

Poetry | Jen Karetnik

How I don’t miss it anymore, not the way I should, not really—

the furious sneeze of bud break from every tree except the sterile

Thai variety, sullen from too much shade; panicles dropping like

noodles extruded through the tiniest dies on the pasta machine; that 

tingle on finding the first fully formed fruit, always a cheeky Haden,

on the lawn like an impressionist Easter egg, aglow with wet oil paint.

My companion, my reflection, my burden, this mango language my foreign

tongue learned so fluently it could fancy itself some kind of native but 

left anyway to pick up another lingo, that of the intermittent citrus that waits

on its stems to be reaped instead of crashing through canopies to land on

the backs of dogs and heads of children, insisting that I be the one to

doorstep it all for the neighbors and friends, also unprotected, who

still can’t get over such never-ending bounty, dense with juice and

hot from the tropical sun that continues to ripen over me, unbound.