Yellow bedsit walls
yellow walls traded
to clean duck-
egg blue – a sign,
I suppose, of
prosperity. and suppose
this is it too – the end
of excursions
and the stumbling start
of something else.
and I’m happy
about it, I also suppose.
love enough, regardless
to give up
adventure. yellow
bedsit walls;
the blue walls
of our current shared
apartment – no more
wild nights, no more
the young firebrand
poet. I loved
being him,
but I like this
as much
as I loved it. waking up
without fruitflies
and wineflies all over
my window. making
a coffee. being made
coffee sometimes.
and hangovers easier
with someone
to talk to. and moving
through rooms, instead
of the one
yellow room.
DS Maolalai has been nominated nine times for Best of the Net and four 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).
Watanabe Seitei, Japanese