Tusiata Avia

Nafanua is surprised at her birth

I wish I could say I loved carrying
But I didn’t

I just couldn’t imagine
What could make me wish for death

Wish for my mother’s death and your father’s death
And rage through the school yard spitting at the children

There was nothing gentle
I was a badly made caravan

An old fashioned oddly curved caravan with legs sticking out
Rust running down

I wanted you to stay in there smoking and eating pies
And watching your black and white TV powered by a car battery

But you came
And I hunkered and I howled like Uterus

The female animal
Baying at a room full with spirits

Old young old young
My face changed

Shearing right off
That thing moving out and in and out and in and out and in

A female flayed out thin
The tautest meat

And there I am questing into the back of my mother’s bed
In my mother’s house in Aranui

And that’s where you came like the eel that you are
(Remember whose daughters we are)

Where you came up from under
There under me

Your face
Hello I said remember me I breathed

On you your still body your round face your eyes closed your not moving
Hello remember me