Encouraging Fruit

They silently stared at the last two mangos while standing side-by-side. Both of them were regulars at the organic market but today was the first time their paths coalesced.
“Have you recently feasted on these feisty fruits?”
“Happy to confess—guilty as charged!” while raising both hands in a surrendering gesture.
“And what was your recollection, if I may impinge on your fortuitous indictment?”
“Well, it was just last week, so it’s relatively fresh in my …” poking their forehead with a rigid index finger, “frontal cortex.” Further elaborating, “Pre-med wannabe. Art school tragedy. Anyways. The sweetness of the pulp was transcendentally sopping!”
Nodding in agreement while gently caressing the mango’s facade, “Should be ripe in three summer moons.”
“My natal day, how intoxicating!” Reaching for the last remaining delicacy, “This beauty has beguiled me from the get-go.”
“And I shall treasure its twin.”

~

In the check-out line five minutes later.
“Salutations, comrade.”
“Charmed, my fruitarian confidant. So what are you plotting for the feast?”
“I was contemplating a lassi.”
“Oh! Yum. Need a sous?”
“I would fancy an accomplished hand.”

~

Neither of them purchased anything else. Just the mangos. They both refused the offer of a brown paper bag.

⌘

This Is What Always Is

Pondering grace
amidst the twinkle
wistful thinking
evermore

Infinity roots
ascending
compassion
at the fore

Nostalgically immune
the legacy seed
romantics chant
Om Shanti

(yes please)

Plush in a world
of wide-eyed arousal
rebirth
is keen

Look at us!
glowing
again

⌘

Bona Fide

Today his mother told him to never go into the basement.
“Why?” he asked.
  “Because I said so,” she answered.
  “But I’m 13 now, I understand things. Is it toxic? Haunted? You can’t say ‘never’ without an explanation.”
Long silence.
“Ask your father.”
  “For fuck’s sake.”
  “Jackson, please. Never utter that tripe again.”
  “Everything’s never now.”
His mom quietly folded the last pair of undies. “I will, on every relevant occasion, love you.”
“Is it because of the still?” he quipped before obliterating his chocolate chip cookie.
“Like I said.”

~

At 6 a.m. the next morning Jackson walked into his parents’ bedroom and poked his dad’s fleshy deltoid with a broom handle.
“For FUCK’S sake!” his father roared.
“Pops. I wanna learn how to make corn liquor. I need a job that pays, man. I’m fixin’ to buy a Mac and wax Promethean. I’m focused, resolute. I can clock before school, after, in the dead of night, weekends. I want to be your deputy. POPS! You awake?”
“Now I am. Meet me in the kitchen. Five minutes.”
Jackson ran out of the room, brushed his teeth, donned the yellow hard hat and safety glasses his Uncle gifted him for his birthday, snapped on a pair of rubber green gloves and a surgical mask, then skipped down the hallway with bona fide momentum.

⌘