The pua and the plait
Fucking isn’t like making lei / with lei can start over / take it all apart / use the same pieces / put her back together again
Can weave and unweave / pull and tug at the cords / resilient and pliable / she can take my calloused hands / and turn them beautiful
With lei you can run your fingers / through and around the curves / of the pua and the plait / an endless twirl / the very essence of her a god
Fucking feels like taking / like wrecking the softest grove / a delicately folded pulsing stone / cracked open and spilling / the magic out
I take the grove and the stone / the pua and the plait and swallow / her poli pulsing inside against mine / the grove murmuring against my chest / speaking heart to heart
What was I saying again?
Fucking is like making lei / with lei can start over / take it all apart / use the same pieces / put her back together again.
When harvested
When harvested,
does the Taro forget
where he is from?
Unborn—cradled
straight into the mud,
where he is from.
Does the Taro dream? The barbershop buzzes. Trap mixes and Kung-Fu flicks fill screens mounted on walls. Of gold chains and hood riches. That’s $14k braddah! A used-car knocking against your chair on occasion. Does the Taro Dream? Of low-skin-fades and cold brews on the couch. Step—snip—buzz—laugh, step—snip—buzz—laugh, the barber sings softly to himself. Of baby mamas and baby mama dramas. Hoo, yessah! That’s my son, one certified hammah! High and tight’s and take-it-all-off’s, and hair raining onto the floor. The fragrance of leather and wood, tobacco and pine, wafting in and out of the shop. Does the Taro dream?
Of staying home and growing old here. Of having the same barber till he mate or you mate, whoever like die first. Of going into the same shop in Waipahū, where the fucken parking is shetty. Of staying home and getting drunk with the boys every weekend. Of being the kine people that wake up 6am to grab a spot at Sandy’s and barbecue all day. Of going to all your friends’ kids’ graduations at the same school. Of learning to golf, or sail, or paddle, or work ʻāina. Anakala hobbies. Does the Taro dream? Of leaving Hawaiʻi for cost of living? Downsizing into our little grass shacks again?
Aʻole.
The Taro chooses a mid taper, tips his barber fat,
and cradled, he keeps it moving. The voices of his brothers
ringing in the ears wherever he goes
But it will not be home.
Ryan Tito Gapelu is a Sāmoan poet and English teacher specializing in contemporary Pasifika poetry, literature, and creative writing. His work blends traditional Sāmoan and Pasifika themes with western literary forms, exploring identity, storytelling, and decolonized poetics.