A time without excitement.

but yes, I am happy now.

life is not duller, just shaped 

with a corner and line. 

a good job, apartment

and a girlfriend who loves me

and brought with her a dog – 

what more can one possibly 

require? adventure now memory

given positive spin

and a risk of chlamydia. 

who really wants 

to hunger in Toronto, 

hacking through snow

like thickets of tree-

branch and ditch? 

who wants lying 

on the mattress,

trailing through tinder,

watching smoke fade 

like forests 

disappearing from the sky? and the thing is,

the poems weren't better even;

not in the good way

of wild and broken language. 

just perhaps sometimes 

about more interesting things,

though often not even

like that. but words paring down

like an axe 

in a timberpile? I can do that

without 

having arguments

with exes

while I sit drinking wine

and watching my phone,

awaiting temp-work, the source

of another poem

and perhaps

a decent meal.

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 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)