Tableau
by D.S. Maolalai
asleep with a blanket, her cheek
on her chin as a pillow,
the whippet tucked under
an armpit and tea on the table
you could lift and pour over
a baby – a cigarette a shinbone
of bending and mottling ash.
I leave on a ten minute
wine-run – the diorama
stable. light moves across
the soft foot hills of features:
a sock stretching over an ankle.