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Fruits

Fruits

Athena Kashyap

1. mango

Curved like a woman, her lesbian lover, the mango kissed her lips. Nearby, a passerby watched her eat amorously. He sucked the sweetness from her nipples, and bored his tongues deep within. His licks sparked flames within her, and when they cooled, a seed formed that grew large and round, dropping down when ripe—a beautiful baby girl.

2. figs

The world is an orange my daughter peels, sucking on juice-heavy tendrils obscenely open to reveal seed pearls. Outside, the tree bursts with figs hanging from bare branches like testicles. No flowers adorn leaves, blooming inside each fruit into a profusion of stars. I envy the wasps born within these self-contained wombs. Most males never get out, gorging on hidden streams of succulent nectar. Females, bodies heavy with male pollen and eggs, stagger outside to seek another fig tree, another fig home, lay eggs, originate the world.

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Athena Kashyap’s first book of poems, Crossing Black Waters, was published in the United States and was launched both there and India. Her work has appeared in Exquisite Corpse, The Fourth River, and Sanskriti, among other journals, and has been in both U.S. and U.K. anthologies. She currently lives in Bangalore, India. 

Athena Kashyap