Douglass Pool
Pulling my left shin
into my chest. Like this.
I wonder if this lifeguard
thinks I’m a freak. In water
limbs are even more
like antennas. The first thing
I do
is go under.
To prove to myself
that the body can. Be completely
surrounded.
Remembering water
is like remembering your
iridescent thighs. In this instance
you is just another pronoun. Like
when she said you can go through
the woman’s side. As if to say
you and your body
are not a threat to women. Or
the sex of your aide will determine
your species. Though in water
I push in all the regular ways.
She says I’m not allowed to wear
my purple shirt. White shirts only.
So I imagine myself completely
as leg. Curling around
the perimeter of my reflection.
This way. My body looks
like a dancing tattoo.
I never had intended
on wearing a shirt.
Copyright © 2023 by Latif Askia Ba. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 6, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.
“I’m interested in how disabled bodies are perceived, especially in public spaces, where our bodies are often hyper-perceived, fetishized, misinterpreted, and overruled. I wrote this poem to explore the act of swimming in my neighborhood’s public pool. I wanted to remember how I navigated the perceptions of others in order to access what I supposedly already had access to. I want to know how I move in and out of water, in and out of the nondisabled gaze.”
—Latif Askia Ba
Latif Askia Ba
Latif Askia Ba is a Senegalese American poet and the author of Machine Code of a Bleeding Moon (Stillhouse Press, 2022). An Early Career Fellow at Columbia University, he lives in Brooklyn, New York.