“CNY”

and god, it is chinese

and finally new year

and we’re finally cleaning

the apartment. it’s tradition

chrys tells me,

and her friend’s over too,

to help with the corners

and the creases inside

spines of books. and she says

she likes cleaning. that it feels

like meditation. like

giving birth – a chicken coming

out of an egg. I take

the office, chrysty the kitchen

and bea the hallway and non-

ensuite toilet.

I’ll do the bedroom later,

and the shower room –

the sitting room we’ll share.

we are cleaning walls

and the windows, books

and the bottoms of tables.

rearranging furniture

like throwing away chicken shells.

it’s something arcane

and financial, she says,

like so many traditions.

I pause a moment,

have tea and knock ash

from my cigarette.

both of them look at me.

“Not arts”

I love it – 10 years on

and visiting college.

a friend works here sometimes;

though science, not

arts work, thank god.

I have been to so many

parties with artists these years

and never once learned

something new.

the geology building

has leaks in odd places,

stone basements, an unalarmed

door to the roof. animal skeletons

everywhere, wine bottles,

wrought-iron piping

all black and coal-hot.

if you hold out your fingers,

ancient and heavy

and thickly industrial,

pulled from the boiler room

guts of a risen titanic.

D.S. Maolalai has received eleven nominations for Best of the Net and eight for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry 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).