The Heavy Manner of Horses
DS Maolalai

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tonight we rest our eyes
like the shrouded bulbs
of traffic lights
at crossings on corners
of dusty and underused
roads. dusk settles, and the air
grows slowly colder,
slowly darker. in the river, swans

kick about pollution,
writing rhyming poetry
on the scumbound surface
in printed shorthand
letters while, above,
a flock of seagulls
spins out cursive
through the sky. at our table
the bowls have shed their loads
with the heavy manner of horses
put to stable for the night.

and we doze,
stretched out on the sofa,
(your head on my shoulder,
reading a book,
losing your place,
finding it, losing it)
relaxing too, as untense
and as comfortable
as all else
has become.