The mangos<\/p>\n\n\n\n
had been picked<\/p>\n\n\n\n
by beautiful pagan people<\/p>\n\n\n\n
who\u2019s souls are entwined<\/p>\n\n\n\n
with ritual magic,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus ripe blasphemies<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and ancient spirit fantasies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The juices were making the<\/p>\n\n\n\n
knife handle sweet and slippery<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and I swallowed a smile<\/p>\n\n\n\n
with every other piece shorn<\/p>\n\n\n\n
from the leathery peel,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
pulpy strings catching in my teeth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The golden fruit was a<\/p>\n\n\n\n
summer tradition growing up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My father would tell us stories<\/p>\n\n\n\n
of his time as a soldier,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
serving the colonial government<\/p>\n\n\n\n
in the jungles of Mozambique,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
while cutting off pieces of the pulpy fruit<\/p>\n\n\n\n
for me and my brother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He called it, monkey food,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
on account of the Macaques<\/p>\n\n\n\n
who would regularly be seen<\/p>\n\n\n\n
in the trees eating the ripe treasure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The wild things would bark and cry <\/p>\n\n\n\n
through out the day and night<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and were known to throw<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the chewed and hardened seed<\/p>\n\n\n\n
at the soldiers below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This made them justifiable<\/p>\n\n\n\n
target practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He talked in a voice<\/p>\n\n\n\n
that was reminiscent<\/p>\n\n\n\n
of hardship shared<\/p>\n\n\n\n
amongst comrades<\/p>\n\n\n\n
who developed friendships<\/p>\n\n\n\n
that were somehow eternal<\/p>\n\n\n\n
in the midst of temperance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The mangos had been picked by beautiful pagan people who\u2019s souls are entwined with ritual magic, Jesus ripe blasphemies and ancient spirit fantasies. The juices were making the knife handle sweet and slippery and I swallowed a smile with every other piece shorn from the leathery peel, pulpy strings catching in my teeth. The golden […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-1022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dlflp","tag-dead-letters-for-living-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephmcabral.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephmcabral.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephmcabral.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephmcabral.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephmcabral.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1022"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/josephmcabral.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1023,"href":"https:\/\/josephmcabral.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022\/revisions\/1023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephmcabral.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephmcabral.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephmcabral.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}