Lines written in Nuku'alofa, beside the grave of Ulysses

Your vaka is a wheelbarrow
lying hull-up
at the back of the 'api,
between the warm corpses
of the umu pit
and the causarina's
broken nails.

Your barrow's blown-out tyres hang
sadly, like skins of the bananas
the bats suck clean.

Every year your craft slips
a millimetre deeper
into the coral soil,
soil which resembles
broken bone.

In a century the hull will be full
and you will begin your last journey,
carrying your load of bones home
to Hades, sinking
as bravely as you sailed.

[Posted by Scott Hamilton]