Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.
I Arrive in a Place with a High Level of Psychic Distress
by Jayson P. Smith
—& i’m prepared to survive a husband.
(Otherwise: platonic as wind. So?)
Under my lethargic win is
a cruelty crafted by sadness.
A cruelty: to traffic in sadness.
Are we shocked at what the body will allow?
Feeling clocked by what a body disavows,
everywhere i write Alexa eavesdrops.
Everywhere i write i f(l)ail to see God.
Desires denied, incremental…
i want to give you my credentials:
soiled daughter of empire (a neutral tense).
After squalls & empire, neutered, spent–
there’s a husband i prepared to survive.
Copyright © 2025 by Jayson P. Smith. Originally published with Queer Poem-a-Day on the Deerfield Public Library Podcast.
About the Author
Jayson P. Smith is a poet, dancer, educator, & curator from the Bronx. J is the recipient of fellowships from Hawthornden Foundation, NYFA, The Poetry Project, and Callaloo. They curate NOMAD Readings in Brooklyn (& elsewhere).
Queer Poem a Day
Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L’Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission.
