let us breathe

we youth are faced with

the Mariana debts

of a world bought on credit card

now overdrawn

let us breathe

heaven’s feet are

anointed with crude

prepared as a sacrifice

to the crooked tide

water is rising past

Maui’s chest, his lungs

shelter microplastic

and ticker-tape seagrass

and the bones of taniwha

let us breathe!

the land cries to us

as ocean fingers grasp

loways, then highways, as

Moana’s dynasty

humbles our proudest peaks

we’re all drowning

sinking further into the

deep, mistaking

bleached coral for daylight

let us breathe

we can’t keep

above the surface

by clutching at the straws

trapped in a turtle’s beak

we can’t breathe

but that is the price we pay