you wake up on sunday
and somebody moving
around in your bedroom
in socks and t-shirt,
a towel and pulling at drawers.
feign sleep – you love
them and they don’t want
to wake you. you hope
they don’t know that they did –
their arms stirring air
like a spoon in a fresh
cup of coffee. and milkiness;
light through net curtains,
its hard corners filtered
to all over softness
and sleep in your eyes
in a crust which you don’t want
D.S. Maolalai 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)