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To the Family of the Man We Ate 130 Years Ago
Nabutautau, Fiji
We are sorry, but when your kinsman, the reverend,
touched the head of our chief
what else could we do?
The head you must know is the crown
where the spirit floats and
his hand, which had touched so many
unclean things—his wife's body
with its many fluids and folds, his own
body, a chicken's wing, even
patted a dog's back with it and then
he raised it to our chieftain's
head to remove a wooden half
a fishbone—comb, he called it,
after he had shown him one gliding
through his own hair—well—in
the rain we anointed him with oils
said our blessings and cooked him
and ate him. His boots—we'd never
seen such things before—we cooked with bele
similar to your spinach but they were
too tough. See here, we've kept them
for almost 130 years and now return them to you.
Now we offer you many whale's teeth—one
for each year his spirit has been
wandering in our bellies—may he swim
to shore and stay with you.
And may you lift this curse from us
that has kept us hungry all these years
with little outside light and very
matted hair.
Sharon Dolin
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Sharon Dolin is the author of three previous poetry collections: Realm of the Possible, Serious Pink, and Heart Work, as well as five poetry chapbooks. She is Poet-in-Residence at Eugene Lang College at The New School for Liberal Arts. Dolin also teaches at the Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y in New York City, where she directs The Center for Book Arts Annual Letterpress Poetry Chapbook Competition and is a curator for the Broadsides Reading Series.
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:hi:
RL
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