ISSUE 3
D.S. Maolalai
Everything's alright with me
​
my trouble, my wife says,
is everything's alright
with me. she gets bothered,
she tells me, by things that
don't bother me. and that
bothers her – that they don't.
everything's unfortunately
alright with me. I can't
help it. take punches muhammed
ali gives; get up and then
get punched again. it's fine
that she's bothered – I'm not
really worried. it's not very grounds
for divorce to be ok with problems.
sometimes it's 3am before I can sleep.
​
Companionship
down in the warehouse
which stands beneath
main office property,
next to the decommissioned
trailer and hitch (brake-
light line broken, unsafe for the road
with a load) we shield
cigarette ends from fire
detectors and sit in companish
silence. the lights are all out – this is after
5:30pm. we are waiting for pick-up
in rain which is petalling plastic-
glass windows in colors of lights
from the neighboring buildings.
one of the guys here
has misplaced his wallet, I think,
although everyone's suspect. we each
search the shelves in a casual
unhelpful way.
D.S. Maolalai has been described by one editor as "a cosmopolitan poet" and another as "prolific, bordering on incontinent." His work has nominated 11 times for Best of the Net, 8 for the Pushcart, and once for the Forward Prize, and has been 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).