Sharks in the Time of Saviors

by Kawai Strong Washburn

I’d dream of what must have been Hawaiian gods. Women as large and distant as volcanoes, their skin dark like pregnant soil, dolphin-kind bodies thick and slick and full of joyful muscle.

If a god is a thing that has absolute power over us, then in this world there are many. There are gods that we choose and gods that we can’t avoid; there are gods that we pray to and gods that prey on us; there are dreams that become gods and pasts that become gods and nightmares that do, as well.