Three Poems by DS Maolalai
I'm married – but still
do you read all the books that you buy here she asks me. I'm paying – something short today by gore vidal. I tell her nah – I have a habit of wanting things available. I'm there once a week – first I like buying books second hand and second have a crush on the girl who works weekends. I imagine it's mutual – she asked for my number to do me a favour once if a certain book of poems showed up. I'm married – but still, you think when a pretty girl asks you. I buy more books than anyone reads reasonably – it's mostly just kindling. I'll see you next week I tell her. she says: I'll see you then soon.
Rain is blown
behind the door, hairdryers call in a storm against bedclothes and pans raised in rank on the rack in our kitchenette. back and forth rain blows; trees twist like fingers on wedding rings. I love you so much I can even write poems while you make such a racket as this.
These streets in the evening
as vacantly dull as glaucoma. a girl of 13 in a corner shop – asking for cash from her card. her friend inhales an apple- flavoured vape and another shifts nervously. the security guard goes alert for a moment, then settles his ass on the ice-cream fridge. outside, fanning close as the blades of an iris, people cluster for trams in the mist of very light rain. next door the asian supermarket does a brisk friday business. this is how most evenings are. they fit down predictably as a laid deck playing cards or arrangements of cobble on sand.
DS Maolalai has been described by one editor as "a cosmopolitan poet" and another as "prolific, bordering on incontinent". His work has been nominated twelve times for BOTN, ten for the Pushcart and once for the Forward Prize, and released in three collections; "Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden" (Encircle Press, 2016), "Sad Havoc Among the Birds" (Turas Press, 2019) and “Noble Rot” (Turas Press, 2022)