Like going on holiday
Your life
explained to cats
might leave them laughing.
at 14, and kissing someone;
getting a taste
for hands
and tongue flavour.
Kissing a lot of people then,
over 10
or 15 years.
falling sometimes
hard in bed
as if lost,
deep
in a tunnel. and then, suddenly,
love – a bird
landing by the window. a thing
you’ve handed
which you now can’t do without. the way that once
you didn’t carry a phone
and now you have one.
Like going on holiday – placed in your bag
like a book
you won’t read
but you carry anyway
because not doing so
would be wrong.
DS Maolalai has been nominated seven times for Best of the Net and three 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)
Bindweed Magazine 