Upstairs bedrooms
at night, a city full of upstairs
second storey subdivided bedrooms:
above shops, above cafes
and restaurants. laundry slung
on curtainrails. men in grubby t-shirts
ashing rolled-up cigarettes
into jars on their windowsills,
wrought iron windowbox holders.
they drink cans of beer,
silhouettes against bare light-
bulb light. yellow painted walls
and aluminium take-away containers.
tomcats walk, tails up
on gutterlines. seagulls underlit
in the diffusing upward shine –
moving in loosely close patterns
together which you watch
until you lose them: becoming spots
among whatever stars are there.
About the Author: DS Maolalai has been described by one editor as “a cosmopolitan poet” and another as “prolific, bordering on incontinent”. His work has been nominated thirteen 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)
Image Credit: Louis Marcoussis “Nature Morte Devant Le Balcon” (1929) Public domain image courtesy of Artvee
As It Ought To Be 