Two Poems
by
DS Maolalaí
Herons
they’ve pulled out the chairs
to the carpark,
with some tables to sit
and drink coffee.
a quite nice
idea, I guess
you could say, but nobody
ever goes
on with it. the cafe
is a quite busy
roadside location
and shaded
by the weight
of tall buildings,
dead trees. the folding tables
stand there, on patient
thin legs,
like herons
toward sunset
picking fish
from their streams.
Would Natalie hate me for this?
I guess you would think
I’d become somewhat changed
if you saw how I’ve been
acting lately.certainly
I’ve gone much
more left-wing than I was,
and properly so,
too; lucky
I talked to the right people
or I’d probably be one of those pricks
on the internet, devil’s
advocating ethnostates
and white strength
and conservatism.
you were the start
I think
of my eventual revolution
but not the end of it. and I think
you first went off me
when I told you
I didn’t have an opinion on abortion
and now
4 years later
a lot of my politics
have boiled down to
traces of your opinion
and “would Natalie
hate me for this?”
still,
I think I’m glad you dumped me,
even though we’d probably
have fit together
well enough
with time.
I’m a better person than I was, or
more progressive anyway.
and I’ve met Chrysty too
and I’m very happy
with her.
Two Poems
by
DS Maolalaí
Herons
they’ve pulled out the chairs
to the carpark,
with some tables to sit
and drink coffee.
a quite nice
idea, I guess
you could say, but nobody
ever goes
on with it. the cafe
is a quite busy
roadside location
and shaded
by the weight
of tall buildings,
dead trees. the folding tables
stand there, on patient
thin legs,
like herons
toward sunset
picking fish
from their streams.
Would Natalie hate me for this?
I guess you would think
I’d become somewhat changed
if you saw how I’ve been
acting lately.certainly
I’ve gone much
more left-wing than I was,
and properly so,
too;lucky
I talked to the right people
or I’d probably be one of those pricks
on the internet, devil’s
advocating ethnostates
and white strength
and conservatism.
you were the start
I think
of my eventual revolution
but not the end of it. and I think
you first went off me
when I told you
I didn’t have an opinion on abortion
and now
4 years later
a lot of my politics
have boiled down to
traces of your opinion
and “would Natalie
hate me for this?”
still,
I think I’m glad you dumped me,
even though we’d probably
have fit together
well enough
with time.
I’m a better person than I was, or
more progressive anyway.
and I’ve met Chrysty too
and I’m very happy
with her.
DS Maolalaí has been nominated eight times for Best of the Net and five 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).