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DS Maolalai
Tipton Poetry Journal – Fall 2020
Fly summer
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DS Maolalai
it was a fly summer. they landed, thick like mosaic tiling, and bumbled about, busy as distant cars, but closer, ruining our arrangements of fruit. chrysty had been recently promoted, and I was still at the bank, making less than she did and not minding. it was a fly summer; that was the thing –their blue-black mechanical bodies landing on our books our computer screens, as if life at home were borne up to pigshit and slaughterhouse. and we, me and chrysty, were destined of course to try. we hung traps for them in the heat, opened some new jars of vinegar. left winebottles on our kitchen tables and closed them with malice each morning. the dog was quite sick – a shot from the vet each weekend. the world buzzed with fly summer, thick as black berries in a black bramble patch. the skin of our salt, dripping with sweat and surrender. even the dog grew tired of chasing those things.
DS Maolalai lives in Dublin, Ireland and has been nominated six times for Best of the Net and three times for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in two collections, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden (Encircle Press, 2016) and Sad Havoc Among the Birds (Turas Press, 2019).
