Breakfast by DS Maolalai

Full English Breakfast by Garry Knight from Flickr

 

a man in the corner
of the first open cafe.
halfbald. overheavy and pale.
eating ham and fried
sausages, two fried
eggs, a fried hashbrown,
cold butter and slices of toast.

daylight comes rolling
down long dusty alleys
like a man in a truck
with deliveries. light looks
in windows; I stop
for a coffee. watch while
I pay, while I wait.

his egg bursts, he cuts
things to glistening triangles;
stacks things and forks
them with ceremony, care,
just as immigrant workers
place fruit on a grocery shelf
in the aisle of a supermarket.
on the chair which sits opposite

a hi-viz is hanging. it is yellow
as egg-yolk, yellower
than the sun.

***

DS Maolalai has been described by one editor as "a cosmopolitan poet" and another as "prolific, bordering on incontinent". His work has nominated twelve times for Best of the Net, eight for the Pushcart Prize and once for the Forward Prize, and 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)