New shoots for new trees.

he’d signed on 
for two years
to a Montreal 
lumber co, working 
with a group
which flowed across Canada, 
like a spilled jar of honey. 
he described it
like a dream
in this bar 
in Toronto, right around Christmas
when I met him outside 
to bum the end
of a cigarette.

how the company moved, like a ripple
riding landscape. how he was not a feller;
he just followed 
where things fell, 
hacking the land up and planting
things; behind him new shoots
rising to trees. how he chased the pine
and hunted it
and laid it down
as pine went down 
ahead of him. like surfing,
and unathletic people,
paddling forward
behind the collapsing
wave. 

Near valentia island

sleeping uncomfortably
on a line 
with the beachfront
in kerry, in a tent
after cycling
and some bottles
of wine. waking 
at midnight
to piss 
on the sand dunes
and the sky overhead
like a badly
scratched frying pan.

DS Maolalai has been nominated eight 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).