Green Mangoes

So many green mangoes the tree bore
like fists of jade clinging in clumps
lost their grip and scattered on the pavement,
snapped away by an overbearing wind.
One browned old, shrivelled with neglect,
no earth to root itself on the cement.
Some found themselves subdued by the weight
of vehicles that minded their ways on the street.
Birds flew down on the others, tasted the ripe
flavor only summer brings under their stony skins.
For the unaccounted, a baby leaf, or parts of their flesh
resting on the space where they used to rest.
I, being a man who can never tell
how they have grown sweet by the way they smell
or the tenderness of the mass behind the peel,
took them all in this capacious basket here.