The Desk

Yael Globerman

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Unlike Icarus, I am learning
to fly on my feet. Sometimes on all fours.
Still, the longing is one and the same:
to row with two revolving arms
closer to
a burning thing.

Five a.m., and the air is stormy.
Again, it is dangerous to wade into the day,
blue as it may be.
This island is made up of sharp fragments.
Things that were shipwrecked are building it,
but on it I can live.
I swim toward the jagged desk
grab hold and climb aboard.

University of Virginia Virginia Quarterly Review
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