Tagi is Fijian/Tongan on her mum’s side and German/English American on her dad’s – altogether a very mixed, queer and feminist PI. Born and raised in Fiji by a few beautiful men and many powerful women, she migrated to the United States aged sixteen. Now, twenty years later, she plans to move back to the islands, to study and teach and pen a few more poems.
how do i describe
how my body wakes, moves
to the heat of your words …
like pele’s footprints waken kīlauea.
your words so hot they’re molten
syllables slip and slide, thickly,
stir my depths
shift plates between our nations
send your seas against my shores.
your tongue, your vowels,
so deep i ride waves against and through them
my skin become your ocean
your blood my tide …
i tattoo you with teeth and nails
dreams and tongue;
tattoo you deeply
stories old and new
into the skin of my heart
in indigo, in ink,
with shell lip and coral dust
memory and desire …
i will trace lines
undulating
spiralling
reaching
like our bodies for each other …
yes, deeply
into skin
lips, tongue and breath, till
my scent becomes yours
your texture mine
your words
quicken
my blood-tissue-cells
like pele
i am ready
to birth new islands
darken fresh soil
with this love …
we will grow frangipani
with creamy yellow centres
papaya and blue taro
sugarcane and mangoes
… with this love
He vows I am planted beneath the Frangipani
Promises I am seeded beneath the Bua.
He has his father’s tongue,
Owns his mother’s languages.
They sing honeyed songs together.
He has even tamed the pālagi one –
It rides his tongue
And he is fertile with story.
Deftly, he weaves tales
Like the finest mats
Constructs memories
Tapa-tapestries
Stained in soil and
Colored with song.
We store them,
Cultural currency for the next birth
Death and wedding.
We carry them
To make us
Real.
He is a teller of tall tales, Talanoa
But what are stories if not lies
Though sweet as vakalolo
Cleaved to our fingers
Floating our souls
In the fat of coconut?
What are memories if not construction:
The storyteller as tattooist
Marking,
And not marking,
Brown skin.
And They say
If your pito-pito is unplanted
You will wander
If it is unplanted
Home will elude you
Well mine is buried in story
Planted in a tall tale
And I wander
Yes,
And home is a story
Home is a story where the Frangipani flowers.