Poetry by DS Maolala
the wine fills with flies
if I leave the cap open
so I mainly buy reds
and imagine the wings
are just blackberries,
or the skins
of crushed grapes
floating like mulch
over bogwater.
to die drowning
in a glass of wine
is to die happy
as anything. like alexander,
perhaps — the great. I read my books
and sip my wine
and brush my teeth
furiously at 9pm, glad
that my unclean kitchen
and the ways that I choose to live
condemn so many fruitflies
to such happy drunken
deaths.
DS Maolalai has received eleven nominations for Best of the Net and seven for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry 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)
Arcturus 