Three tomatoes will never be enough.
One mango could never suffice.
Your toothpaste heart can’t brush away
the sweater you left last season,
the seasoning of you still the recipe for my disaster
and still my favorite dish.

You, little tomato fruit, pretending to be a vegetable
more at home in the savory, salty pot
but still a fruit, a seed, a fleshy heart.
I bite your surprisingly protective skin
not nearly as thin as it looks
thinking of juice ripe as blood.

You, sweet, simple mango, edible stone fruit
born of a single flower’s delicate ovary
but with a hard stop center more pit than flesh.
Your skin is slippery and hard to cut, you are
less filling and more surprising to the unwitting eater.

I love you like pineapple.
You turn my tongue cane-sugar sweet
pop a treat, I can’t stop, I eat
until my tongue is rough, worn, and tough
I stay and stay until it’s long enough
overripe, you’re just my type.
The taste of you hangs in my head
a heady tang above the bed.

You are memory of fruit in winter.

I remember all this in the awkward seconds of space suspended
like your knuckles poised on the wood of my door.
I collect my thoughts from under the covers, and I answer your question,

“No, it’s not too late for you to come over.”