Aumakua: a succubus
from the Sandwich Islands,
South Pacific.

Her hair was long, at least by our dreamland
standards. She had wrapped the tail ends around
her toes, so that when she walked she left the sand
patterned, like the wind in the dunes. The sound
of her song could be heard up and down
the beach. In the graves of Chief Roi Mata
and his 20 wives the old man would frown
at all the smutty figures she would draw
in the sand with a stick. Missionaries
called her a devil as she drank the rain
gushing out from her own lap. Her menses,
it was said, could wake the dead, heal that pain.
In our dreamland she waits, a succubus
under a lotus tree, pleasure’s goddess.