DS Maolalai recently returned to Ireland after four years away, now spending his days working maintenance dispatch for a bank and his nights looking out the window and wishing he had a view. His first collection, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden, was published in 2016 by the Encircle Press. He has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
Laundry
DS Maolalai
outside
the door to my apartment
the washing machine
goes like a helicopter.
it shakes
dances on the floor
rattles like a jazz drummer at practice.
my girlfriend says
I should call the landlord. something's
off with the balance
she says.
it could be fixed pretty quick
by a man with a screwdriver.
she's a pharmacist
and lives with her parents.
what does she know
about washing machines
or landlords?
I try to just get my clothes out
as fast as I can,
let someone else put in theirs
and hang my trousers
to drip-dry in the shower.
if I don't use the spin cycle
at least it's not
my own dirt
that keeps me awake.
Marianne Moore
DS Maolalai
I'm not going to try
ripping off her style –
I couldn't.
I'm no mimic
and not that good.
But only
I'll say
that so rarely
do old poems
so written like marble
and so built to catch dust
come so readily alive -
she was born to be an editor
and instead wrote poetry
severe enough
that it was like being cut
by a machine
designed for cutting.
And nobody ever talks about her
anymore,
I suppose
because she said
what she felt needed to be said
and then never
said anything else.