Na(HIV)PoWriMo ± April 4, 2017

Kristina England
Painting the Early 1980s

Lesions emerge
into stained tailspin.
Red drowns
art pieces within.

Hogwash men blame homosexuals,
scrawl on billboards,
radio transmit own perpetual
lies into line-blurred

facts. Society trusts, gets sick,
abstracted disease progresses
into collateral chaos epidemic.
Hogwash men realize own mess,

take action. No apologies given.
Leave canvas-cracked skin.

 

Kristina England‘s poems have appeared in New Verse News, Silver Birch Press, and Topology. She lives in Worcester, Massachusetts, where she is a writer and photographer. Follow her at facebook.com/kristinadengland.

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Here is today’s prompt

(optional as always)

Write a poem about receiving the news of a positive HIV test in 2017. For some information that might help your poetic process on this topic, check out this page on being newly diagnosed with HIV.