trout

Making Siapo: 1. peeling the bark

Cherie Barford

small plantations of mulberry trees
are tended like growing children

pruned and nudged into alignment
they sprout straight toward heaven
without branches or strange notions
to mar the finished product

when village babies toddle into walking
saplings from the same birth-moon
are cut or bitten around the butt

the bark stripped from them
like clothing
peeled from wet bodies

determined pulling
some grunting and wrestling
finally accomplishing the deed

Siapo = Samoan tapa cloth