Old friends

tadgh has the tv controller. I'm on aaron's sofa

with a can of his microbrew 

beer. his daughter and celine's

are in the kitchen at a plastic-

mold kitchenette. I can see

from megan's face 

that she's listening in through the wall. 

there's a cartoon on tv – it's a dog

playing basketball

and julianne is pregnant

and asking a lot of questions. 

outside's the kind of sunshine

which comes brightly at a slant

under heavy cloud cover – through light rain

and upward, off cars past your eye

to the back of your skull

like a bird flying into an airport 

plate window at speed. 

if you'd asked me three years ago

I'd have said they were ruining their lives. 

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)