The Man in My Mango Tree, by Stacie M. Kiner

Untitled, by Mark Rothko (USA, b. Latvia) 1957

The Man in My Mango Tree
 
The man in my mango tree
wonders what it would be like
to kiss you underwater,
 
wants to know 
what water sounds like
inside rain.
 
The man in my mango tree
passes you a note in class
makes love to you once
then dreams of violins,
 
thinks of Picasso
as he brings you
coffee and papers
in Paris.
 
The man in my mango tree
wants to live in a book of Mondrian
and when he dies --
fall into a pool
of red and black acrylic
in a Rothko painting.
 
When the man in my mango tree
opens his body
 
love letters, poems and telescopes
 
pour out. ​

​Stacie M. Kiner

Stacie M. Kiner is a former fellow at the Vermont Studio Center and Hannah Kahn Memorial Award recipient. Her poems have appeared in The Charlotte Poetry Review, Madison Review, Comstock Review, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Apalachee Quarterly, Lavender Review and SWWIM, as well as other journals and publications. Stacie’s work has also appeared at Palm Beach International Airport, “Art in Public Places.” Stacie is the former moderator of a poetry talk show in Miami, and currently an Associate Editor of the South Florida Poetry Journal.