No Sky is
my dad doesn’t rate the pictures
by gui we’ve got up in the sitting room.
those are altered he argues. the colours
weren’t like that. no sky is
like that. but how
to explain half the art
is the edit? aspects pop
intentionally – clouds behind a ferris wheel
a day on coney island, thick
as piled cream for desert. fading buildings –
the skittles of springtime
as trees come to bloom.
you’re like that too –
I look and it’s better
than a photo. and I take
a photo and it’s not half as good.
DS Maolalai has been described by one editor as “a cosmopolitan poet” and another as “prolific, bordering on incontinent”. His work has nominated twelve times for Best of the Net, ten for the Pushcart and once for the Forward Prize, and has been 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)
