My Desk, My Planet

I must have a desk today, I mewed,

Hands upon my hips. It’s how I sparked the feud.

This my defense: No place to sit and write

leaves my poor pen a vagabond— oh, sorry plight!

To find a desk is to find healing,

And desklessness leaves such an empty feeling.

A kind man brought it, he was a cello player

(Late romantic to Shostakovitch, no later).

The desk was perfect, pristine, noix noire,

gracefully bowed legs and a little drawer,

Deconstructed down to wood and bolts

All resting in the plush trunk of his little red Colt.

It’s not so big, he said; my sister used it to compose.

(A desk already haunted by clefs, notes, arpeggios!)

It’s just the size for what I’ll place upon it, I replied.

And so it is– just big enough for what’s mine,

Large enough for pictures by Chagall,

For mindmaps and for steaming bowls of dahl,

For poems, for journaling, reviews,

For songs, for memes, for interviews,

For music, film, Earl Grey,

For sandwiches, for night and day.

There’s space enough for butterflies to land,

So spacious is my planet, and so grand!