1 minute read
DS Maolalai
Immortality less important
drinking wine, typing poems at our flat’s kitchen table. my girlfriend has taken the office away. she works late sometimes and I can’t really argue—my chance at immortality less important than paying our bills. so if poems are different then that’s why tonight: I’m writing now somewhere unusual—not that you’ll know it; they’ll go out just the same to the editors—mixed in with old ones, ones written later on. the extractor fan glows with a warmth of a campsite and fireplace. tile floors and wood cupboards reflect back the keyboard like marching and hesitant ants.
Advertisement
DS Maolalai
Visiting my grandmother
the trees, blue as teeth, bite the hills to small pieces, and the grass melts like butter being laid across toast.
we are visiting my grandmother. ‘97: I’m six. sitting on the windowsill of this damp winter house, with its plaster-cast saints and its plasterflaked corners. sky tipping darkness like a poured cup of tea. the moaning of cows rolling in through the windows; they sound terrible, and this morning my uncle had me touch one; I hated it, and also the taste of their milk. it’s different at home: it’s much colder and fresher. here I am six and the world sitting inside a tennis ball; it is dark and it smells very musty.
