Issue 32 | Spring 2025

People in free situations.

DS Maolalai

look: we’re pushing

out onward –

fast over motorways

like opening a book

to an unchosen page.

look: people

get free – these are free

situations; we have nowhere

to go, so we go there,

and the road goes there too

so we go there

together – forward, inevitable,

like an undersea current

and hooking

a boat. look: we see

the horizon, we bite

the horizon. look: birds dip

behind it; we follow them.

About the Author

DS Maolalai has been described by one editor as “a cosmopolitan poet” and another as “prolific, bordering on incontinent.” His work has been nominated thirteen times for BOTN, ten for the Pushcart and once for the Forward Prize, and released in three collections; Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden (Encircle Press, 2016), Sad Havoc Among the Birds (Turas Press, 2019), and Noble Rot (Turas Press, 2022).