"I Still Dream of Mangoes in Your Mother’s Garden" by Layla Ghazaly

for Nour

No, don’t take that one! 

that sweet sweet sweet ripe one

so delectable that one, all flesh

and red and tenderness, I’ve been waiting

to sink my teeth into that one since

it shared all its luscious promises with me.

Take all of them, except that one!

that heavenly, bountiful, brimming 

with life one, that one that imbues me 

with its fullness, its fragrance, its flavor

so red red red, warm, full, so wholesome 

no other earthly delight could ever compare.

Anything, anything but that one!

bury me back in the ground with that one

and do not do not pluck it from the earth 

without me, let me soak in its layers 

let me watch her grow again if only 

to inhale her scent one more time.

Layla is a Cairo-based writer who enjoys long walks with street cats, late night mint teas, and collecting music boxes. She spends a lot of her time bargaining with life to slow down and failing that, writing about it in her poems and short fiction.