for my wife

                    and our unborn daughter [håga] 

                              ~
We cannot think of a time that is oceanless

Or of an ocean not littered with wastage
		—T.S. Eliot from ‘The Dry Salvages’
                    ~
[she] is

drinking a 
glass of

filtered tap                         Brita Pitcher Plastic Water Filtration $24.99
water when

she first
feels [håga]

kicking—plastic 
from fukushima

litters the 
beaches of

oʻahu gathering 
place [she]

is watching 
an online

documentary about 
home birth—

part of
a comb

corner of
a crate

piece of
bottle cap—

[she] is
craving poke

fish eat                              ʻahi poke : $17.99 per lb at safeway in mānoa

                                                    preserved with carbon monoxide to promote color retention

fish that

eat plastic 
derived from

oil absorbed 
by tissue—

the doctors 
recommend [we]

schedule a 
c-section—if

you cut 
open the

bellies of 
large birds

you will
find the

bristles of 
[our] tooth-

brushes—because 

amniotic fluid

is ninety 
percent water

because every                              4-pack replacement filters $24.99
body births

plastic never 
dis- so-

lv- e- s 
                    ~
before i first

visit [her] in

kaʻaʻawa—before
we eat ʻahi

limu poke at

the beach—before
we wash [our]

hands in salt

water and forage  
the tide for

shells—before we

learn [our] body
languages before

i mistake trade

winds for her
hair—before my

tongue dives—before

[we] come against 
wreckage—before [we]

close our eyes

to see what 
darkness asks [us]

to let go—

before chickens crow 
the sun rising—

before i knew

i would stay—
before vowels and

consonants—before was

pō—first darkness 
birthing [our] sea

of moving islands—
                    ~
i tinituhon—

             [she] is breathing—
at home under a muku moon—
             every island is an end and a beginning—
we time the contractions—
             neither ocean nor oceanless—
                          thirty minutes apart—
                                       hacha hugua tulu fatfat lima—
             “imagine each contraction is a wave” 
says the voice on the hypno-birthing app—$9.99—
             the alphabet is a collection of bone hooks—
                                       neither arrival nor departure— 
                          i place my hand on [her] darkened piko—
neither origin nor destination—
             sounding lines measure night passing—
                          should [we] go to the hospital?
                    ~
dear fu’una, first

mother, this is

my first prayer
to you, full

of questions: taotao

manu hao? where 

are you from?

what made you

leave your first 
home? war, disease,

rising tides? so

many of [us] 
have left guåhan,

deployed to faraway

bases—dear fu’una, 
dispensa yu’, i

lost [our] first

language in transit, 
first words become

ghost islands—fu’una,

first sister, what 
did you carry

aboard the canoe?

hacha hugua tulu 
fatfat lima—i

carried my passport,

baseball cards, and 
coin collection aboard

i batkon aire

to san francisco—		 
how did you

let go? 
                    ~
during RIMPAC 2014
                    ~
when [håga]

was newborn
[she] rinses

her in
the sink—

atrazine in
the water—

a fat
pilot whale

deafened by
sonar washes

ashore hanalei 
bay—now

that [håga]
is bigger

[she] bathes
her in

the tub, 
cleans behind

her ears,
sings, “my

island maui,” 
written by

her dad, 
jeff, whose

ashes were 
scattered in

māʻalaea harbor, 
decades ago—

schools of
recently spawned

fish, lifeless,
litter the

tidelines of
nānākuli and

māʻili, koʻolina 
and waikīkī—

when we
first take

[håga] to
the beach,

[she] carries
her into

the water,
hanom hanom

hanom, DU 
munitions, PCBs,

SINKEX—[she]
secures [håga]

tightly to 
her chest—

what will
the weapons,

ships, aircrafts 
and soldiers

of 22 
nations take

from [us]? 
i wrap

them in 
a large

towel when 
they return

to sand—
“i introduced

[håga] to 
grandpa jeff,”

[she] says—
is oceania

memorial or
target? monument

or territory?
economic zone

or mākua?
a cold

salt wind 
surges across

the beach—
[we] shiver

like generations 
of coral

reef bleaching— 





Notes:
Understory: in ecological studies, ‘understory’ refers to the plant life that grows beneath

the canopy of the forest, and consists of a diversity of shrubs, saplings, fungi, and seedlings. 
Pō: In the Hawaiian belief system, Pō is the creative darkness from which all things emerged. 
Fu’una: In the Chamorro belief system, Fu’una is the mother of creation that gave birth to the

Chamorro people. Worship of Fu’una was displaced by the missionization of Guam and replaced

by Catholic beliefs of creation. 
Poke: Hawaiian dish made with raw fish.  
I tinituhon: Chamorro for ‘The Beginning.’
Hacha hugua tulu fatfat lima: Chamorro for ‘one two three four five.’
Dispensa yu’: Chamorro for ‘forgive me.’
Piko: Hawaiian for ʻnavel.ʻ
Mākua: Hawaiian for ‘parent.
I batkon aire: Chamorro for ‘airplane’ (literally, ‘air boat’).
Hanom hanom hanom: Chamorro for ‘water water water’
DU munitions: DU stands for ‘Depleted Uranium.’
SINKEX: Military term that refers to a ‘Sink Exercise,’ in which an unmanned target ship is

used for torpedo or missile testing, sinking decommissioned warships in the Pacific.  
RIMPAC: Military term for ‘Rim of the Pacific Exercise,’ the largest international maritime

wartime exercise that takes place biannually in the waters around Hawaiʻi. In 2014, the year

my daughter was born, twenty-two nations participated in RIMPAC.
For more on the territorisation of the ocean.
Various covers of Jeff McDougall’s song, ‘My Island Maui,’ can be listened to on YouTube.