I make a skirt
from a Pacific wave
and name her
Moana-nui-a-Kiwa

I gather her waist
at the muliwai

in prevailing winds
I fill her pockets
with sound drowned valleys

I sew her buttons
parallel to the coast
and wash them free of sediment

when the ocean rises
I use herring bone stitch
to release every fish

when the ocean is turbulent
her fabric is distorted
this is when her parchment hem
becomes the hull of a waka

and she carries us
to Cape Reinga

the place of leaping
where we both wave
as the ocean carries her home