Sean Flood
ALOHA

she plunged below the line of the ocean and
saw lava exploding into the emptiness she saw
sea become land when we came to this place
there were myths and shadows and people and
we joined them becoming lava exploding
into steps that a man could climb

upon and journey to nowhere we saw one day
a white sail on the sea and ghosts
disembarking on the sand they said this
land is not finished yet this land of many
gods and of feathered kings is not finished
yet we were not finished being born we

laid our heads upon the grass and we dreamt
that we were back in the land of mu we
remembered that we were the ancestors just
as much as the ancestors were ourselves we
remembered that one day we would be peasants
and that the ocean would pull us back into

the crag and say we are not finished yet we
remembered that when you cry into the ocean
the tears are like sharks’ teeth we remembered that we
used the stars to sail from home and then to
return home again we forgot the names of our
gods and our ancestors they had no meaning to us

anymore we learned that there are twenty
nickels in a dollar and that trousers must
be buttoned up in front but one day we would have
things called zippers that cut into time like cutting
into black hair with sharks’ teeth we became
lava exploding into the past and sweet

potato roots digging into the earth but there is no
escape we remembered that if you dig into the sand with
your fingernails you might dig deep enough to find
the double-hulled canoes that carried us here
like sharks’ teeth we took lava steps
to see the ancestors fall into the crag

Sean Flood is a writer and poet. His work has appeared in The Bombay Review and Black Ink. Favorite hobbies of his include playing old Nintendo games and daydreaming. Read his poem Hydroquinone in Cleaver’s Issue 17.

Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #18.