dS maolalai
sun stroke
the sky boiled
like a pot filled
with crabs. i was red
all over. and then blisters. and this
was croatia. a holiday with my family.
it was during
that heat wave—the one
before the current; that time all those people
died in france. i sweated through sheets
for 5 days
in the apt,
reading books and snipping
my skin with a needle.
liquid dripping puss,
sticky as cum on my chest.
the occasional shower
like falling rocks.
but it was cold, the only thing
which felt cold to me.
DS MAOLALAI
DS Maolalai has been nominated eight times for Best of the Net and five 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).