Oysters

sun on the pavement
kicks skin off a rainstorm.
an eagle is doing a platter:
six oysters for 22 quid.
she shows me the angle
to tip up and eat them.
they are salty and fresh,
like a better class of seawater
than you get off the docks
at clontarf. chrysty loves oysters.
her teeth cut soft tissue
and come out and bite
her soft lips. and her tongue
is another kind of shellfish.
it is pink and unsocial. it’s salt.
I struggle—she smiles, gives
another demonstration. my wife
is a seabird pecking rough rocks
seen from a car on the coast.
she is heavy as unfloating flotsam.
something you pick up and take home.

DS Maolalai has been described by one editor as “a cosmopolitan poet” and another as “prolific, bordering on incontinent”. His work has been nominated thirteen 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).