A Pot Of Humuhumunukunukuapua’a Poem by Rachel Dacus

In a store I saw a one-cup teapot
shaped like a fish I once met
under the waves at Puako Beach.
Short as a thumb, he had a name longer
than the curving shore. Breaker
blue scales and gold fin-to-fin stripe,
he startled me among the reef knees that
and his painted eye under surf as frothed
as kettle-singing water. I took him home
and filled him with leaves and bubbles,
let him ruminate until the tea steeped me
dark enough. As he swam away,
I pressed a silver fin to each eye,
lifted my cup and drank
crackling syllables of sea.