Marmalade

I wake in the morning,

stretch

and scratch my legs.

Something

is fine enough

in this—

a long rest in the morning

like wine squeezed from dying flowers,

lying under these sheets

which cover half my body, gray cotton

in moldy moonshadow,

set against the protests of sun

spread on the walls

like marmalade.

Someone is combing her hair in the mirror.

Someone is scrambling eggs,

someone

who will sit back down again,

propping her back against the wall,

to eat them.

Cars go outside

with the sound of waves on water

and the weather is at the window

scratching like a cat

to come in.

—DS Maolalai

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