Beetlebung and Kettlehole--April Poems

Merrie Monarch

"I'll go. Big Hula festival in Hilo," he says,
"Best thing about the whole place."

His lips are still warm with Pinot Noir
and he winces at the sweetness,
memory or wine, I cannot tell, yet throw
a ragged lifeline to our chat,
"In Hilo? And the occasion?"
"Merrie Monarch, if you must know,
to pick Miss Aloha Hula,"he says,
as if she's fruit, ripe and toothsome.

I imagine a pageant for unsolved puzzles,
women dancing as a single force
to give up their crown
for the male eye, and singing,
words draped in flowers, flowing
in liquid music to a tragic sea
masked beneath an ashen moon,
and beauty bucking on just one face.

Then I wonder: Is she
shattered inside, watching a volcano,
her jam-packed crowd of bronze shadows
swirling hips, mastering the fire
in dramatic distances?


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Prompt: A difficult conversation