How to swallow a colonizer

after Kathleen Lynch
with lines repeating from Haunani-Kay Trask

             1.   Brindle your throat.

             2.   Metabolize the twitching
                   eyes, tongue, feet.

             3.   Hold your stomach 
                   with both hands while
                   his teeth dissolve and recite: 
                   you will be undarkened 
                   you will be undarkened. 
                   This acid, medicine.

             4.   Always rub your piko.
                   When the settler breaks down
                   stick your finger in your mouth
                   to beckon flowers.

             5.   Kaulana nā pua.


 

 

From Ask the Brindled (Milkweed Editions, 2022) by No‘u Revilla. Copyright © 2022 by No‘u Revilla. Used with the permission of the author.