^{“How ashamed water is to be what you have made it.”
—Conchitina Cruz}

this week i was becoming          it was the eve of a storm i was forming
 
into fluid preparing to              change state or nation into occupied
 
land over a crime scene        a body of water not over a woman but
 
oceanic in that way.              now i’m new here & no genius but even
 
i know water is life;              what is the harvest of a tank farm? what
 
grows? nobody                   deserves this, not even the random ate in
 
waipahu who                   told me why can’t you just get over martial
 
law as if we                    could have even gotten to find his body or an
 
ordinary                    grief. even servants of empire can be my kapwa.
 
what is a             colony against that? what if i got a bottle of pinatubo
 
water                    shipped here the same wai that along with lava rushed
 
down our                  mountain in grey torrents to turn one US base into
 
a ruin                              the other evacuated, tails between its legs? what
 
if i offered                                     that water to this land in places, bit by
 
bit, to say:                                              you’re not alone. keep fighting

When I say first time, that implies 
there will be a second, a fourth, a ninety-ninth. 
From far away our teeth must look like Tic Tacs, 
Chiclets, moons of a faraway planet. Nocturnal 
animals can smell better at night because scent 
lingers when the air is still, and so I smell the mint 
of our mouths but also the spill of peppers 
from the salsa dropped on your shirt. The greasy 
sidewalks we walked an hour earlier. Hotel soap 
freshly bubbled and wet in the dish. When I root through 
the thicket or the brush pile, my fur turns electric striped 
and tail-tumbled. I foam at the mouth. The mask 
on my face means bandit. Turns out I love the dark. 
My little paws want to grab everything and wash it.