I don’t know  Labasa at all. But it’s beautiful. If I had a daughter, I’d name her Labasa. (Teresia K Teaiwa – ‘My own private Labasa’) LA- basa by Mere Taito Come. Over here. See. Look beneath my nails Chunks of Bainisucu still live there Its gravel, small mountains and golf courses That calloused my feet And on - your –marks- get- set- ready- go! –ed Me back home Chuckling at the sight of me Feisty and too free Tomboy shorts and banana sap stained play shirt Hair wild and out of place Anything but woman! Part this once grass filled hair Feel the dust of Wainikoro Still frolicking there with yeasty breadcrumbs That came later As unlikely as two playmates can be. Turn my head And carefully You might disturb the ghost of a Labasa College Head girl badge dangling from my right falinga Muniama once boxed When I shot her bullets of cheek Still , girl Hardly woman. Lift my lashes Fall deep into the brown Stolen  from a dress My mother A gentlewoman from Malha’a Bought from Dayaram Gangaram And drown in its chocolate. Here, these contours The FSC hills of my breast Alive, Making sugar, Especially now, DD fuller! Bring your hand Let it know the tautness of My calves and buttocks We made these muscles Aggie Gibson and me She hers and me mine Cycling 20 kms to Malau on borrowed bikes 17 and still virgins the sun latched onto our backs like miraging backpacks laughing silently at our talk of ‘when I leave school…’ Run your fore finger gently Over the scar on my knee The tree of the carrot mango Shook me out of its branches Onto waiting earth Who opened her mouth, bit hard and chastised, ‘ Serves you right for stealing!’ My other mother, Determined to have a say in my journey to womanhood. Did you see it? The scurry in my feet? shackled on from the growl of Mua’s white FSC Land rover Announcing his arrival and  the promise of an in faliang If he caught the muffled cries of shut home work books And the complaints of ice block stained school uniforms Still with frame Yarning with Darshana and Pinky next door. Cup your ears now Listen. Hear my Labasa. The boom! in my loud Echoing unexpected blasts of bargass fueled boilers As they called their magic To burn the juice of the cane into rich thick molasses The sound of koinized Hindi in my voice The work of my tongue, confused, Seeking pit stops in alveo and dent street As did Arti’s and Reshmi’s And Satya’s, Dear ole biani Who laughed with her bangles and mangal sutra When my tongue stopped at Saraswati’s Rickety push push  sweet cart instead and attempted, ‘Ek jelebi de. Ket na? Ha rait. De do.’ ‘Bahut pagli larki! She’d say. Did you notice? This larki is now woman Still pagli though The kind she wants to keep Stand closer Cup better  Thudding in her In harmony with the fara’s jou gita the sound of the dhapla She caught in a kite On a hill Beneath the mandarin tree When the goinda parade passed below Ignoring a time Trying so desperately to catch her gaze Turning only When  clanging worshippers disappeared Into the trees Setting her free Releasing her To walk in to the arms of a future. Hers.