Sail past (poem)

Sail past

What if you got the job? Would it have a disastrous effect

on your twenty-four hours, eight required, sixteen (alleged) free

But commuting, licking boots by “taking work home”…

Sleep

Your allotment dwindles

You don’t know how old you have to be

before your past presents as a lifetime

And the lifetime looks describable as “spent”

You want an easy dominance, almost to cow the man across the desk

You want (more chiefly) a personal assistant

Always on an errand, getting a requested thing

The absence of which impedes any immediate aim

You want your own desk cornered to the window

One screen obtuse, one visible for this supervisor unmet

To whom, with a limpish backflipped hand, you can say, “I have that.”

That to attend to, apologies for needing more time

You want your leisure tracking to your working hours

To feel that bustle…an informed sort of bustle—

A knowledge in your fingertips, of codes and hacks, a waiting poised

like a hunter quick in leaning to the motion

of a buck, call this reaction enhancement, tell doubters, “it’s in a book”

—is work, workish behavior, and counts when done while getting paid

Staying informed is workish

Having words, and finding more words, finding them with confidence

Understanding there is poignance, that poignance is available

As a thing that can be felt

Sail past

with sleep

(2025, Stephanie Foster)