Ka Leo O Hawaii

Issue date: 11/21/07 Section: Mixed Plate

You rich, ah?
Pasimati says this every time she comes over.
Looking around the parlor
at my secondhand furniture,
the artwork on the wall,
mismatched, in cheap frames,
she leans in close to me, whispering
so my reply will be in confidence:
You rich, ah?
Laughing, I slap her shoulder
and never say no.

Pasimati doesn't know any haoles
other than me.
She stares at the freckles on my chest and says,
How come you no have palangi hair.
Are we sisters, I wonder.
Is our hair the same?
Hers glints like a dark pearl,
beautiful and strong,
a waterfall at night.

Pasimati has thick, restful hands
that face down, never up.
Her house is filled
always with many strange men
who say things in overlapping voices
that I can't understand.
Pasimati pretends that she can't hear
and brings great pots of ‘ulu
to a table that was once
a picnic table in the sand.
As I chew the soft flesh
I taste Pasimati's hands,
a history I have imagined for her,
and I want to say,
Pasimati, why did you come here?

Sione is Pasimati's husband,
a round man with a round voice
who throws chicken bones on my floor,
pisses on my bed when he's drunk.
I think he beats Pasimati
but I'm afraid to ask.
Fatani and Lolo are her children.
They often hit one another
and used the crayons I gave them
to draw long lines on my car.

When Pasimati is silent
I am silent with her, but
in her big open eyes,
as she is a big open woman,
I can see everything.

Pasimati was something
of a princess back home.
But now it seems she has nobody
to remind her.
One afternoon Pasimati gives me
a small plastic figurine
with palm trees and a sunset
carved into its back.
It reads "Hawaii" in fancy script
of red and blue letters.
When she leaves, I notice
the price tag underneath:
Oshima Drugs $4.99.
I want to cry
and I send my thoughts after her:
Aloha, Sistah

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