Hinemoana by Stacey Teague

  in the far-spread ocean solitudes     Hinemoana hides herself so perfectly  in the fold of the tide     she thinks she would prefer to stay untethered  so moves from place to place     Hinemoana is a blue hallway  with no adornments     she is a backlit expanse  something to be caught adrift in     Hinemoana is not something to take possession of  she might let you climb into the house of her body  but you will not return from there    Hinemoana dreams of biting down on flesh, viscera  spitting out bone as she goes       her desire is more likely to destroy  than to save     she erodes the land with her wildness  only to appear as a footnote in someone else’s story       she sees herself in the surface  it gives her pause       she does not recognise herself  a mirror reflecting another mirror     Hinemoana begins to notice  life growing inside her  aglow in the darkness    when the baby is born  she gives it as a sacrifice to the sea  slips the pink lump into the bloody water     like an anchor to the sea floor    -- Stacey Teague (Ngāti Maniapoto/Ngāpuhi) is a writer and editor from Aotearoa New Zealand. She is the poetry editor for Awa Wahine, has her Masters in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters, and has one book, Takahē (Scrambler Books, 2014) and two chapbooks, not a casual solitude (Ghost City Press, 2017) and hoki mai (If A Leaf Falls Press, 2020).  Wasafiri 106: the Water issue is out now.