Sunset and broken trees

looking out west
at a red and wet
orange, rain
and the sunset
painting crocuses,
light streaming lines
like an over-open
polaroid.

I am in my kitchen
typing my poems. it’s sunday
and 9pm late. the sun
losing, all horses
shot or asleep,
the whole thing coloured
with a light red
kitchen tile. anyone
outside now
is miserable, wet
and cold.
inside, I am cold
as an open refrigerator,

watching the light
shift like tea
as it soaks through a napkin
and money
long out of circulation. there is something –
the glow there;
burning lakeshores
with broken trees. the shot orange
of wet wood on fire,
the brightness of the sky, saturate
and shedding its load.

DS Maolalai 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).