Banana Mansion Sestina, Sam Moe
Your invitation arrives Tuesday on banana
yellow paper, I open the card and a thousand
creamy beetles fly out, you need only ask once
and I’ve gone from dirt road to plane
to swamp-boat. I am wearing my dress rain-boots
the pair you said made me look like a trashy child.
the swamp boat is made of soft trash and Swamp Child
steers close to mud banks but we don’t crash, can a
garbage house save my life? I hear the hoots
of fat-necked cats who eat stars from sewers, vows and
your eyes we eat breakfasts for days plain
toast and I miss you. Staircase mouths you once
braided my hair before cutting its stem. Somonce
means love, says a frog in my ear. I arrive a mild
emotion dumpling, relieved you’re running late, a plain
clothed concierge greets me instead. We eat banana
bread and play gin rummy in the foyer. It rains, thousand
lights flickering before the Power goes out. It loosens
its tie and takes the garbage boat to market. Looks
to me like Power’s not coming back, so we light once-
wet candles, pray for the best. Then you’re here and
we don’t embrace. You’ve built a box house mild mold-
sized tunnels made of cardboard and several banana
beds crafted from old fruit and vegetable skins. I feign
exhaustion, fall asleep on fungal endives, rain
seeps through wet cardboard, it’s a mansion, boots
by the door, scraps of baths down the hall. I’m a banana
girl when you’re around, too soft, crying forever. Once
you told me you’d never leave him yet we defiled
the vows and threw gold streamers to the gators. I, house
heart of paper do swear to stand by you. A thousand
lies later we enter the Bed Fruit Hall together, plain
pajamas and nervous hands. I’m sorry I lied, my wild
thoughts tell me wild stories about rubber boots
and the heat they hold. You take the lead, at once
a paper crane and my flammable love. Only when banana
clock strikes twelve-thousand, Power boots
its way into the mansion, wet clothes, consumes the lights.
Sam Moe is a queer writer of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. She is pursuing a PhD in creative writing at Illinois State University. Her work has appeared in Overheard Lit Mag and Cypress Press. She received an Author Fellowship from Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing residency in June, 2021.