I thought I could stop

time by taking apart

the clock. Minute hand. Hour hand.

Nothing can keep. Nothing

is kept. Only kept track of. I felt

passing seconds

accumulate like dead calves

in a thunderstorm

of the mind no longer a mind

but a page torn

from the dictionary with the definition of self

effaced. I couldn’t face it: the world moving

on as if nothing happened.

Everyone I knew got up. Got dressed.

Went to work. Went home.

There were parties. Ecstasy.

Hennessy. Dancing

around each other. Bluntness. Blunts

rolled to keep

thought after thought

from roiling

like wind across water—

coercing shapelessness into shape.

I put on my best face.

I was glamour. I was grammar.

Yet my best couldn’t best my beast.

I, too, had been taken apart.

I didn’t want to be

fixed. I wanted everything dismantled and useless

like me. Case. Wheel. Hands. Dial. Face.

Your absence is a bisected city 
block where a hospital once stood.
The footprint of a yellow house on Providence’s east side
we once shared. Demolished. A white pickup you drove
decorated with black dice. The ground beneath it
crumbled—poof—then paved over, engraved like verses
into stone. When I was told what happened to you,
I sank to the wet floor of a bar’s bathroom, furious
that you left us to reassemble ourselves
from rubble. To build, between subway stops,
some saccharine monument
pigeons shit on, empty except for a circle of queens 
chattering, furnishing the air like ghosts. Your death
means I’m always equidistant from you, 
no matter where I travel, where I linger, 
misguided, hopeful. Last night, by candle light,
a woman unearthed me. 
Together, she and I grieved 
the impossibility of disappearing 
into one another. Poof. Since you died,
erasure obsesses me. Among the photos at the memorial,
one of a banner that reads WHERE IS YOUR RAGE? 
ACT UP FIGHT BACK FIGHT AIDS, carried by five
young men. Your face in each. Your beautiful face.

Work out. Ten laps.
Chin ups. Look good.

Steam room. Dress warm.
Call home. Fresh air.

Eat right. Rest well.
Sweetheart. Safe sex.

Sore throat. Long flu.
Hard nodes. Beware.

Test blood. Count cells.
Reds thin. Whites low.

Dress warm. Eat well.
Short breath. Fatigue.

Night sweats. Dry cough.
Loose stools. Weight loss.

Get mad. Fight back.
Call home. Rest well.

Don’t cry. Take charge.
No sex. Eat right.

Call home. Talk slow.
Chin up. No air.

Arms wide. Nodes hard.
Cough dry. Hold on.

Mouth wide. Drink this.
Breathe in. Breathe out.

No air. Breathe in.
Breathe in. No air.

Black out. White rooms.
Head hot. Feet cold.

No work. Eat right.
CAT scan. Chin up.

Breathe in. Breathe out.
No air. No air.

Thin blood. Sore lungs.
Mouth dry. Mind gone.

Six months? Three weeks?
Can’t eat. No air.

Today? Tonight?
It waits. For me.

Sweet heart. Don’t stop.
Breathe in. Breathe out.

Never knew a thing about the Saint

Vincent, hearty name

a comforting stew

in a violent December

the first ward to welcome

the men who would become

my children until mothers

chose God over religion

love over blame

woke up from the stupor of shame

that worst of all AIDS complications

Jealous mothers

returned afraid

awake that I might take their place

after one found me in bed

putting love into lesions

fields of killer berries blue

heralds of final breaths

our bodies gently threaded in tenderness

word got around

the best doctors looked away

nurses never saw a thing

as we snuggled, giggled

careful not to unplug anything

the joy of Popsicles

the birthday cakes

the friends who came

the ones who didn’t

hard conversations

thinking about the daddy

you wish you had

made you mad

so many orphans of the living

be the daddy, don’t dream the daddy

daddy’s not coming

be the daddy you wish you had

don’t get jealous

get alive and live to the bone

of all the love you have to give

send your neighbor a prayer, a chocolate, a kiss

don’t miss the daddy, be the daddy

tell the bedtime story

we can all tuck each other in

be the daddy to the boy dying

days before you

become the breath you barely have

be the orchestra section of another’s life

the days endless with machines, medications

necessary interrogations

interruptions of sleep by front line miracle dreams

I wear my Reverend Mother disguise

so I can stay through the night

You make me promise

they’ll honor the DNR

no matter how you beg

whatever look of despair

comes into your eyes

You know what you want

while you still own your mind

When mama finally arrives

you’re still alive

I kiss you every time

always the chance of good-bye

The AIDS wards

Where lifetimes were lived

in moments.

Where Death wrapped us in the mercy

of seeing life for the very first time

the immortality

of Love threading body to soul

with tenderness.

Never gone too far.

Never knew a thing about the Saint

Vincent, hearty name

a comforting stew

in a violent December

the first ward to welcome

the men who would become

my children until mothers

chose God over religion

love over blame

woke up from the stupor of shame

that worst of all AIDS complications

Jealous mothers

returned afraid

awake that I might take their place

after one found me in bed

putting love into lesions

fields of killer berries blue

heralds of final breaths

our bodies gently threaded in tenderness

word got around

the best doctors looked away

nurses never saw a thing

as we snuggled, giggled

careful not to unplug anything

the joy of Popsicles

the birthday cakes

the friends who came

the ones who didn’t

hard conversations

thinking about the daddy

you wish you had

made you mad

so many orphans of the living

be the daddy, don’t dream the daddy

daddy’s not coming

be the daddy you wish you had

don’t get jealous

get alive and live to the bone

of all the love you have to give

send your neighbor a prayer, a chocolate, a kiss

don’t miss the daddy, be the daddy

tell the bedtime story

we can all tuck each other in

be the daddy to the boy dying

days before you

become the breath you barely have

be the orchestra section of another’s life

the days endless with machines, medications

necessary interrogations

interruptions of sleep by front line miracle dreams

I wear my Reverend Mother disguise

so I can stay through the night

You make me promise

they’ll honor the DNR

no matter how you beg

whatever look of despair

comes into your eyes

You know what you want

while you still own your mind

When mama finally arrives

you’re still alive

I kiss you every time

always the chance of good-bye

The AIDS wards

Where lifetimes were lived

in moments.

Where Death wrapped us in the mercy

of seeing life for the very first time

the immortality

of Love threading body to soul

with tenderness.

Never gone too far.

I think my lover’s cane is sexy. The way they walk
like a rainstorm stumbles slow across the landscape.
How, with fingers laced together, our boots & canes 
click in time—unsteady rhythm of a metronome’s limp 
wrist. All sway & swish, first person I ever saw walk with
a lisp. Call this our love language of unspokens: 
We share so many symptoms, the first time we thought
to hyphenate our names was, playfully, to christen
ourselves a new disorder. We trade tips on medication,
on how to weather what prescriptions make you sick 
to [maybe] make you well. We make toasts with
acetaminophen bought in bulk. Kiss in the airport 
terminal through surgical masks. Rub the knots from 
each others’ backs. We dangle FALL RISK bracelets
from our walls & call it decoration. We visit another
ER & call it a date. When we are sick, again, for months
—with a common illness that will not leave—it is not 
the doctors who care for us. We make do ourselves.
At night, long after the sky has darkened-in—something
like a three-day-bruise, littered with satellites I keep
mistaking for stars—our bodies are fever-sweat stitched. 
A chimera. Shadow-puppet of our lust. Bones bowed into 
a new beast [with two backs, six legs of metal & flesh & 
carbon fiber]. Beside my love, I find I can’t remember 
any prayers so I whisper the names of our medications 
like the names of saints. Orange bottles scattered around 
the mattress like unlit candles in the dark.

Things feel partial. My love for things is partial. Mikel on his last legs, covered

in KS lesions demanded that I see the beauty of a mass of chrysanthemums. Look,

he demanded. I lied that I could see the beauty there but all I saw was a smear

of yellow flowers. I wanted to leave that place. I wanted to leave him to die

without me. And soon that’s what I did. Even the molecule I allowed myself to feel

of our last goodbye made me scream. What would have happened if I’d opened

my heart all the way as I was told to do if I wanted Jesus to live inside one of its

dank chambers? Whitman told me to unscrew the locks from the doors and the doors

themselves from the jambs. Let love come streaming in like when the St. Joe flooded

Save-A-Lot and drove it out of business. The only store in town. Don’t put my ashes

in the river Mikel said. Put them in a tributary. I did. I put them in a tributary without

touching them. Now I want to chalk my fingerprints with them but it’s too late.

I want to hold them like he held me and touched my upper lip and called it cupid’s

cusp, a phrase that made me wince. I felt love all the way then, and never since.