the day shifts position like a dog on the sofa,
and, having shifted, becomes still.
clouds curl in close around churchspires
which rise on the river and the windows
of dockside office buildings, their ceiling lights lit
for the benefit of cleaners,
just squared floating ice above fog,
like cubes in a countertop gin glass
in the romance of ovenlit kitchens.
trains make their passage
known on the cast iron bridges, in silhouette
over rivers and the kicking
of toddler streets. pigeons roost quietly
on roofs of uninsulated houses,
like outcrops of rock on earth's
grass-hidden hillsides, which might
in a moment, without any warning,
take flight against whatever light is left.
~~
DS Maolalai (he/him) has been described by one editor as "a cosmopolitan poet" and another as "prolific, bordering on incontinent". His work has been nominated fourteen times for BOTN, eleven 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)
