Lil Mermaidz
By Tayi Tibble
Rinsing the sea salt out of our bikinis
with the drinking water and getting a slap
upside the head from your mother with her
House & Garden magazine reserved especially
for fanning away mosquitoes and sighing
because we know that this is how
it’s always going to be
because this is how it’s always been
because for thirteen years
it seemed that life was nothing but
a succession of hot summers and we were sure
that we were Tangaroa’s daughters, the way
we adapted to each turn in the river.
And I remember the year
we were the two strongest “girl swimmers”
in our syndicate. This meant
we were forever forced to race
the boys for Western feminism
and you would always win,
even against the boys who were so like men
the teachers treated them as if they were
more muscle than human.
In the damp parts of afternoons
we’d watch them running laps and
ripping Papatūānuku up
with their cleats. Their teeth clenched
around orange slices of rubber and the reo.
Well I felt sorry for them
slapping kia mate ururoa kei mate wheke
into their chests. Maybe
they wanted to be dolphins instead.
But that was our job, to dive dumb
into the skin of the sea and throw
our heads full of good hair skywards,
saluting the sun. Making scenes
of ourselves when we should have been
slinging pipis into your mother’s kete
reserved especially for stealing kaimoana.
But I was vegetarian and I didn’t wanna
have anything to do with prying kina
loose from the rocks
to offer up to the bros like pussy.
Them slurping and spitting while we flinch
oi don’t and they just chur each other on
like a pack of crackling gods.
And I can’t remember where we were
but I can guess that we were probably
doing what we were always doing
during those summers that sweltered
with a swagger, standing on the sand
picking out which surfers we wanted
or tanning on our backs in the soft parts
of the riverbank but somewhere
between the boys and the wet
centre of the earth I said Hey
have you ever noticed the way
boys seem to wiri when they’re angry?
The way their eyes roll back and
their lips pull tight? That’s adrenaline,
you say, taking a thirsty glug of water,
you want to bottle it, you say.
100% New Zealand Pure.
