DS Maolalai

on the motorway
one of the streetlights
has flipped up its topcap.
it looks like a hawk
perched in silhouette, watching
the slow moving traffic
of commuters in the evening
as they wind into dublin
from warehouses in business
estates. the light's never on. I guess

rain has got at the filament.
it's been months. it would probably
be expensive to fix. there are plenty of lights
and the traffic that moves
goes slow as spilled honey
under bridges, past the hard-
shoulder exits. long-stemmed wild flowers
waggle from cracks
in the median central

divider. I look at the mirror
of the car right ahead of me –
see a man's eyes, like a hawk
on a lamppost, looking back and directly
at mine.

DS Maolalai's most recent collection is "Noble Rot" (Turas Press, 2019)