Shaun R. Pankoski

  

Shaun R. Pankoski at eight years old

Shaun R. Pankoski is a retired County worker living in Volcano, Hawai'i with her cat, Kiko, and more coqui frogs than she cares to mention. She has held a Top Secret clearance in the Air Force, was a founding member of a Modern Dance company in San Francisco and an artist's model for over twenty years. Her most treasured possessions are letters from Lois Ann Yamanaka and Barry Lopez. She is a two-time breast cancer survivor and makes a mean corn chowder. Her poems have been published in Verse-Virtual, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, Ekphrastic Review and ONE ART and her work is forthcoming in Quartet and Gargoyle.

Comments by Sharon Waller Knutson

I met Shaun Pankoski in March when she emailed me to complement me on my poems on Verse-Virtual and I commented on her unique wacky poems in an email to the community. Since then we have been mutual supporters. I knew she’d fit into the journal because of her individuality and creativity and am proud to publish these delightful, charming poems about Shaun’s life in Hawaii.

Mokauea* Island

It was that first year
back on the Big Island-
the one where I got laid off
two weeks before Christmas.

You said, “Come to Honolulu with me.
You can meet Lei, celebrate Nina's birthday.”
I brought pear-scented soaps
as a hostess gift.

Three pale eggs
nested in a box riffled up with tissue.
She took the soap,
but looked at you strangely.

The house was both full and empty.
Larry had been dead for a while,
but his ghost still held sway-
boxes of rusted welding tools,

unfinished projects,
a pantry full of canned goods.
I helped Nina plant sweet potato
in an old bathtub in the yard,
 
helped you hook up the shower
with random parts
we found under the house.
Tour boats floated by the dock

as we worked-
sunburned tourists,
drunk and loud, cameras out,
gawking at the natives.

We took the outboard to town
for the party. Lily yelped from the shore
and jumped in the water,
trying to dog-paddle to me.

Pupus* at the Korean bar and a sheet cake
with a picture of Nina in frosting-
her wrinkles erased, orchids in her hair.
Lei singing karaoke to “We are Family.”

The wana* shell I found on New Year's Day,
palest purple and perfect,
waiting quietly to be plucked from the sand,
now sits on my kitchen sill.

But the night before had blazed,
wild and crackling-
fireworks and city light,
 the bonfire limning you with gold.

*Mokauea Island is one of two remaining traditional fishing villages in Hawai'i, located on the island of O'ahu. The other is Miloli'i, located on the Island of Hawai'i. Pupus are the Hawai'ian word for appetizers. Wana is the Hawai'ian word for sea urchin.

What I Didn't Do

The snapshot is of you,
wearing your favorite palaka* shirt,
the mended pocket concealing your heart.
You are standing in proud profile
beside your newly-washed pickup,
so red it's glowing.
Someone else took the picture for you

and I can hear you saying,
“Back up, back up.”
You wanted it all in frame-
the brown stilted house, the ti-leaf hedge,
your brand-new catchment,
the flamboyant jungle backdrop
swallowing everything whole.

We ate pie on the porch,
listened to Sonny Chillingworth on the kitchen radio.
You said, “You'll be back,”
as we swatted mosquitoes off each other.

I stalked a man in the grocery store today.
His long-jawed face reminded me of yours,
the way he hitched his pants,
baggy at the seat and knees.
Each item in his cart was carefully chosen.
He did the math in the produce section.
The clamshell strawberries were not on sale.

I almost cheered
when he reached for the green basket,
tucking it in with the rest of his things.
His stooped walk through the parking lot
was long and slow.
Just before the intersection, he stopped-
ate one of the berries out of his bag.

I wanted to hug him too tightly,
take his hands, press them to my face.
Instead,
we waited for the light to change.

*Palaka is a heavy, plaid patterned cloth (“Hawaiian Denim”) made into shirts that were once the standard for plantation workers and paniolos. (Hawaiian cowboys)

Evidence

A pile of rubber slippers at the door.
Washed shirts, shorts and bvds,
hanging in the carport, hiding from the rain.
A calico cat in the red cinder driveway
eyeballing the gang of mynah birds
as they strut and pick
at the leftover rice, tossed in the grass.

The wild pigs have been working hard.
We wake to an excavated yard,
snout-shaped furrows
evidence of the search for grubs and roots.
High-stepping roosters with strong, pale legs
like distance runners, police the fence line,
trying out their new voices.

Somewhere, a sad dog barks and howls.
Somewhere, a weed wacker buzzes,
a generator hums, a gun goes off.
At night, there are so many stars, I feel drunk.
We haven't given up yet. The proof
is in the rusty coffee cans lined up on the porch,
filled with gardenia starts, fat with buds.

The Bus to Kona

is five dollars
and three hours
from Kam Avenue
to Ali'i Drive.

Filipina grandmothers
are kissed and deposited
by impatient granddaughters.
They sit up front,
quietly chewing
on cuttlefish and crackseed.

Smooth brown men
in tank tops, Ray-Bans and slippers
anchor back seats,
still as temple dogs.

A weary woman
chats with a wearier one.
Both hoist plastic bags
of Spam and toilet paper.
They discuss their respective
shoe collections, no longer wearable.

(The medications make their feet swell.)

Wiry Rasta man,
a dark spider
with nervous eyes
under a soft knit cap,
throws his world
into the undercarriage compartment.

(Bike, tent, mat, pack, bag, helmet, lantern.)

Pale Asian girls,
tanned Haole boys
sag under book-bags,
unaware of or unimpressed by
the privilege
of going to private school.

A couple lurches on.
He, small and reeking
of urine and beer.
She, doughy, with sad,
unfocused eyes
in a face full of pain.

Her shoulders round
and her mouth  
hangs open, like a fish,
gasping for air.

He sits next to me,
nonchalant, filthy towel
draped over his shoulder
like an athlete.
I breathe through my mouth,
turn to the salt-streaked window.

We wind around hills
up to Honomu.
The bus fills
 with the fragrance of gardenias.

A stout local woman gets on,
carrying baskets of creamy blossoms,
with glossy leaves that seems to erupt
from her brown forearms
like a whole bush from fertile soil.
There is a rustling, a settling.

My seatmate gently taps my arm.
I turn from the window
as he hands me
one perfect flower.

 Rendezvous

Our car
smells like mangoes
and the yellow ginger we picked
along the red road yesterday.

It is that dewy,
cool time,
just before dawn.
But the sun is chasing us to Kona.

I watch,
kneeling backward on the front seat
as he bursts through the clouds
like a god.

You drive
the thin black ribbon of road,
tap on my leg.
I turn to look.

The sun is not following us.

He is rushing to meet
the rice-white moon,
as she waits beside an origami mountain,

face upturned for a bedtime kiss