Poem 12 ± World AIDS Day 2017

David Schimmelpfennig The Road Forever Traveled Not the type of road I’d otherwise pick. No forks like Frost’s: just dirt, rutted and unkempt. Meandering out to the main one that sticks out on maps. To the smooth tarmac that isn’t devastated every time the donga’s get upgraded. How many times have I walked this road? … [Read more…]

Poem 11 ± World AIDS Day 2017

Barbara Rockman Ladder of bone rungs a love poem I could barely get a finger hold slender chest I fell against impossible height to him wraith of a man corpse I insisted on I had no foothold how his concave met me oh barely-there man my body greater than A girl wants linear and light-filled … [Read more…]

Poem 10 ± World AIDS Day 2017

Roger Ian Rosen Bloody Fingerprints on an Innocent Is it true that I still crane my neck, Try to be noticed, Try for some form of acknowledgement At the mere sight of a gay man woman trans couple queer family bi nonbinary. Yes, me too. Me too, I cry out in glances. I’m here. We’re … [Read more…]

Poem 9 ± World AIDS Day 2017

Robin Gorsline A Seminary AIDS Quartet First, there was Mike, young, skinny, creating wonders of liturgical truth, not ever accepting even the existence of a box into which the chapel worship had to fit. And then Kevin Roman Catholic theologian who talked and wrote openly, honestly, about that which the Vatican fears most, sex. Stephen … [Read more…]

Poem 8 ± World AIDS Day 2017

Risa Denenberg the night we tossed your ashes mingled with rose petals into the whitecaps at Cherry Grove can you see us standing at the eastern edge of sand at midnight and the others, your friends stampeding into waves at high tide butt-naked calling to me come in come in come in because of you … [Read more…]

Poem 7 ± World AIDS Day 2017

Laura Secord For Women Living with HIV Survivors with spindle arms and sofa bellies, whose lovers died when they were young, who toiled and raised their kids in isolation. Some grew the extra neck of choking fat the early meds gave. Some cannot retire, sunk so deep in drug debt’s mire. Most dismissed many years … [Read more…]

Poem 6 ± World AIDS Day 2017

Greg Marzullo Refugee crisis They ran to their boats, heaving off the gravelled shore into cold Aegean, where we flailed, shoved, climbed one another. Charon would surely reach us first eyes flashing in the gloom. Ferocious they plowed the sea, the waters cowed by their glare, calloused hands gripped the oars, unremitting. Famished sirens, we … [Read more…]

Poem 5 ± World AIDS Day 2017

Elizabeth Wilson from The Collection of Izzy Mac “It’s hard to write about the details of Bob and me, but without Bob, very little of me remains.” —Journal entry, Izzy Mac(e Wilson), June 2017 1. Thank you I was jaded and getting harder. My body mimicked my emotional state. My heart was black and hard. … [Read more…]

Poem 4 ± World AIDS Day 2017

Julene Tripp Weaver Miracle Meds Pharmaceutical wonders are at work but I believe only in this moment of well-being. —Jane Kenyon I refused AZT. Eventually, my T-cell count fell to fifty, only then I agreed to a non-protease regimen: Epivir, Zerit, Viread and Viramune. Their chemistry made me manic, unable to sleep, deprived. A walking … [Read more…]

Poem 3 ± World AIDS Day 2017

Dennis Rhodes Passing They think no one dies anymore. The worst is over. Time to move on with their uninfected lives. The truth is men have struggled for twenty years or more trying to get their “cocktails” just right, fearful as ever of night sweats, random sores breaking out on their bodies. They have been … [Read more…]