Philip Kobylarz, School Liquor Store, Photograph
Magpies.
some days are days
when you feel the storms
settling. it’s unsettling.
buildings wag wickedly
like trees in strong
winds. worlds fold, close up
with the tightness of dead legs
on spiders on guest room
windowsills. lizards leap. lizards
crawl over the walls. I understand
that drunks can see spiders
or bats when they’re deep
in the DTs and trembling.
I walk outside anxious,
see magpies, thousands of them,
perched on fenceposts
and telephone wires.
their tails flash
together in tandem,
like a collection of fans
on a street-hawker stall
flipping open and shut again
in an unpredictable wind.
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DS Maolalai