Spatial Relations by Jay Yair Brodbar

October 21, 2022
Poem name: Spatial Relations Poet name: Jay Yair Brodbar Poem: You want space, take half a continent. I have had enough of spaces, of desert places, I have walked them, sat small in their mountains and understood why in such places people invent gods. I am a city boy, where even elbows are welcome intrusions, and the straight-arm held stiff in self-protection holds the promise of the curve of an embrace. The space I crave is small, and intimate, and often crowded where the inevitable jabs are accidents of fumbling for closeness. End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Jay Yair Brodbar Previously published in McGill Street Magazine, Winter 1995. For Toronto-based Jay Yair Brodbar, his family and writing practice are his two pillars in the time of plague. He has published in various journals in including Parchment and, most recently, CCAR Reform Jewish Quarterly. His poem What We need Beyond the Pale appears in the Poems in Response to Peril: An Anthology in Support of Ukraine, with proceeds going to PEN Ukraine.