TUSIATA AVIA

Tusiata Avia is a poet, performer and children’s writer. Her solo stage show, Wild Dogs Under My Skirt, premiered in New Zealand in 2002 and has since toured in Austria, Germany, Hawai’i, Australia, Bali and Russia. Her first collection of poetry, also titled Wild Dogs Under My Skirt, was published in 2004 and her latest book of poetry, Bloodclot, in 2009. She was the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies Artist in Residence at Canterbury University in 2005 and the Fulbright–Creative New Zealand Pacific Writer in Residence at the University of Hawai’i the same year. She is the 2010 Ursula Bethell Writer in Residence at the University of Canterbury.

Fresh from the Islands

I remember how he would come home

with mangoes smuggled in as palusami

he would hand them over

from his unfamiliar hands.

It was better than Xmas

unwrapping those foreign oranges

from their burnt taro leaf disguises.

He showed us how to cut them

and we took them from him

like grenades

we ran to the backyard to lick the juice

from our arms

and pick the strings from our teeth.

When we came in with our pips

our mother’s was untouched –

she was sick

and tired of mangoes.

Pa’u-stina

I am da devil pa’umuku kirl

I walk down da street shakeshake my susu

I chew gum an smile wif my gold teef flashing

I call out to da good womens

sitting sitting in deir house

Eh, ‘ai kae! An I make dem see my arse.

I am da dog kirl wif da fire in my arse

Dey call me da woman not da kirl

My thighs rub together make da fire in deir house

My fat taro legs my fat taro belly my fat taro susu

I walk pas all da good womens

an I laugh wif my white teef flashing.

I smell like da hot rain flashing

An all da good men are looking for my arse

All da good men are waiting for da back of deir womens

You are da good kirl da sexy kirl da lovelybeautiful kirl

Dey run like da dog I let dem lick my susu

Dey run in da back dey run to deir house.

I walk pas da high chief’ house

I walk on da high-heel shoe like da spear flashingflashing

My bra tighttight so I have da 4 susu

Da whole chief’ council look for my arse

An make da special fine for da pa’umuku kirl

I can hear da laughinglaughing da smiling of da womens.

My red toenails wavewave to da womens

My red toenails shineshine to da womens in deir house

I am da devil pa’umuku kirl

An I laugh when dey fine me wif my red lips flashing

I pull my skirt up an show my fat taro arse

I laugh like da dog da volcano shake my susu.

I am drinking on da road and playing wif my susu

Dancing wif da dogmen running from deir womens

I am laughing at da dogmen licking at my arse

I am laughing at da dogmen deir black arses flashing

We love you sexy kirl we love you beautiful kirl we love you lovely kirl.

I laugh like da dog like da volcano like da arse hole. Dey cry for me like susu

We want you hot rain kirl we have forgotten our womens

We will go to da house of Pulotu we will go wif our black arses flashing.

Wild Dogs Under My Skirt

I want to tattoo my legs.

Not blue or green

but black.

I want to sit opposite the tufuga

and know he means me pain.

I want him to bring out his chisel

and hammer

and strike my thighs

the whole circumference of them

like walking right round the world

like paddling across the whole Pacific

in a log

knowing that once you’ve pushed off

loaded the dogs on board

there’s no looking back now, Bingo.

I want my legs as sharp as dogs’ teeth

wild dogs

wild Sāmoan dogs

the mangy kind that bite strangers.

I want my legs like octopus

black octopus

that catch rats and eat them.

I even want my legs like centipedes

the black ones

that sting and swell for weeks.

And when it’s done

I want the tufuga

to sit back and know they’re not his

they never were.

I want to frighten my lovers

let them sit across from me

and whistle through their teeth.

Nafanua explains her pedigree

It’s true, my father is an eel

half eel

no one said anything about his tupuaga o le āiga

and no one ever asked.

My family is fucked

I mean really fucked.

My father ate my uncles and my aunties

my mother was a Siamese twin

and there’s nothing really wrong with that

but her sister took both halves of the heart.

My mother married her uncle

which makes me my own niece

and half half eel

and half half twin

and my sister

she just hates me.

Nafanua talks about her tupu’aga o le āiga

All of them started like I did

‘alualutoto

bloodclot

and the only place to go was the sea

and the only place to put them was the sea.

When my breasts swell, as they do at night

I go back down

and there they are circling

like soft sharks with no teeth

and they feed

till they are big enough to look after themselves.

I call them pepe

I call them tupu’aga

(we all have to look after each other).

I heard once that the tupu’aga o le āiga live in your head

and that’s the reason no one should hit you in the head

or even touch it, that

and brain damage.

The old people knew about that

the way we like to hit each other in the head

po

po

poki your ancestor

kalepe your ancestor

ku’i your ancestor

till

you’re

dead

the tupu’aga come and live in my head

shark

shark

shark

shark

eel.

And that’s when it comes to me

the name of my father

Saveasi’uleo, and how he ate his siblings.