“To Swim with Eels”is from Emelihter Kihleng’s collection of poems, My Urohs (2008), the first ever published by a Pohnpeian poet. Kihleng’s poetry explores themes of identity, place, and relationships in Pohnpei and among Micronesian diaspora communities in Hawai’i and Guam. The collection is named after urohs, the iconic appliqué and embroidered skirts worn by Pohnpeian women. Here, the poem is paired with a dohr, a woven belt once worn by the highest-ranking male chiefs on Pohnpei but woven by women in an expression of women’s knowledge, wealth, and creativity.
“To Swim with Eels” by Emelihter Kihleng
Part of me comes from rodents
a rat surrounded by kemisik
in Saladak, land of lasialap
all my friends are kemisik
while I am only part kitik
I could have been eaten, then
taken to the mouth of the river
the other part of me is empty
with no animals to call family
whiteness mistaken
for nothingness
I swam with lasialap girls
and their ancestors who
lurked behind rocks
and was never afraid although
I could have been eaten, then
taken to the mouth of the river
I have heard of children in Kitti
who swim with sacred eels
in freshwater pools and streams
never to be bit
my fingers bled twice from
the mouths of eels who
tried to eat the food off my fingers
a warning
I could have been eaten, then
taken to the mouth of the river
Saladak is theirs eternally
descendants of Lien Madauleng,
their eel ancestress, who came to Pohnpei
on a school of marep
and gave birth to four eel daughters.
I am not one of them
Sounpasedo, of chiefly lineage
and kemisik blood, yet
we swam and ate together like sisters
but I must remember
I could have been eaten
by kemisik girls and their mothers
long slick bodies, full
manaman,
swimming upstream
to give birth to male chiefs
