Redundant, distant, the night

ocean appears in the skull: 

ink-spot, slow roar to wide black.

It is the year of the black water tiger!

At last, you don’t look, you feel- deep within 

Magritte’s massive, finalized egg

How its shell nears the brass of the small birdcage—

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MARA JEBSEN teaches at New York University. She received her MFA from NYU and BA from Duke University. Mara holds a New York Foundation for the Arts award in poetry and her book, ‘The White Year’ was a finalist for the Jake Adam York prize with Milkweed Editions.  Mara’s work can be found in the American Poetry Review, Hanging Loose Press, jubilat, Sixth Finch and in other journals. She was raised in Lome and in Philadelphia.