High above the tourist racket of Panglao and the neon tide of beach bars,

we climb through the night, sandaled feet dirt-smudged, 

too young to care about the cobwebs tangled in the eaves, or 

the way the rotting wood beneath us creaks in warning. Lying  

on the jagged rain-softened roof, two bodies drenched in the dewy murmur

of December sea breeze, we share a mango, making sure no one claims 

the bigger half. Taking turns sucking the sweet flesh 

to the pit. The small hard future sealed inside it. We talk about everything

and nothing, laughing about how much we wanted to escape the city, only

to land above waves exhaling diesel, opal cheeks studded with plastic wounds.

The mango’s yellow ribcage cracks open, and we reach in to lift out

its sun-ripe heart. Everywhere we go, we pocket the fruit seeds, tucking them

into forgiving patches of dirt. Somewhere below a karaoke machine howls

another drunken love song into the sea’s throat, while we climb down the ladder 

of rusted gutters and bury the fistful of tomorrow in a stranger’s backyard,

where stray dogs won’t paw it out. Peach tree in Fiji. Strawberry bush 

in Petra. Lemon tree in Mongolia. And soon someday, we will have a colony

of mango trees too. Raising their cathedral of fledgling leaves above some future roof 

where other children climb, with salt in their hair and seeds in their pockets.