Mango Showers

The warm wind blows,

ripe with warm sticky memories

of childhood summers -

scraped knees, marbles and kites

 and elbows dripping golden yellow

mango juice.

I lie sprawled –

half on–half off

the couch,

feeling a lazy caress

as the air sluggishly drifts

from corner of the room to another.

The Hindu flutters briefly,

the pages fighting a losing battle

against the humidity.

And then it too lies limp

letting the heat wash over it.

On the front page,

a bespectacled man smiles and waves

sporting a coffee cup halo

Dry leaves rustle on the concrete outside,

the crunch competing with the sound

of the tender coconut vender -

“Fresh and Tender”

“Full of Juice”

he claims.

“Beat the heat”

he promises in a fit of sales talk fancy.

His voice is soon drowned out,

by the man who pushes

a blue hand cart

piled with baby mangoes

waiting to be sold by the kilo

and pickled

by many a household

in anticipation of

a time without mangoes

With a jerk, the fan stumbles to a halt,

filling the room with a sultry silence,

and making no difference to the breeze

who does as she pleases,

and keeps her own hours.

The outside cacophony

competes with

the silence inside,

as I escape this heat

to the summers of my past – 

where the winds were never this warm

and the mangoes were always juicier.