Disposed
Gear adrift I say—a phrasal anchor in me & here at the summit no one I know knows what it means. I stay neat & ask What did I imagine better before work before that last time breaking One Tuesday I volunteered & never again The drumbeat softens & I still decline to admit how cowardly & shipwrecked I feel so many miles from the equator How fast can I choose differently a presence I pretend In the darkest sweater I own I'm almost cold
Copyright © 2018 by Khadijah Queen. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 3, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
“Over the past few months, I’ve been reading Melville for the first time and writing nonfiction about my time in the Navy. My thinking began to encompass the nature of work, the body’s abilities and disabilities, and the choices we make about our lives. Gear adrift means something that is not stowed in its proper place, that could become a hazard under certain circumstances at sea. If I was trying for anything, I suppose it would be the comparison between that gear adrift and a person adrift, whether discarded or not belonging—but not even sure they want to belong. Disposed, then, has potential for a double meaning: either tossed away or inclined—as in an asserted feeling.”
—Khadijah Queen
Khadijah Queen
