Eighteen

1979- Untitled (Testimonies)

"Of all the mysteries posed by AIDS, perhaps the deepest and most damaging is this:
why have we failed so utterly to prevent it's transmission?"
-New York Times November 17, 2009

Because the needle the dealer gave me wasn't clean.
Because I only ever had sex with two partners and the second one was infected.
Because my second husband told me his wife had died of it, but I didn't understand what that meant.
Because I was born this way.
Because I couldn't ask my husband if he'd been faithful. He paid for everything.

Because the prostitute didn't have a condom.
Because they pay more for sex without a condom and I need the money.
Because the condom broke.
Because sex doesn't feel the same with condoms.
Because I forgot, once.

Because back in the day, they didn't test the blood supply.
Because I was afraid to get tested, because if it came back positive that meant it was it, it's over.
Because she never told me.
Because I thought you could tell who was sick by looking at them, and he had a six-pack.
Because I thought you couldn't get it from oral.

Because I thought lesbians didn't get it.
Because I thought people my age didn't get it.
Because I thought married people didn't get it.
Because I thought I wouldn't get it.

Seventeen

1997: New Mexico- Sentimental Appeal

They were very young.

She was beautiful and Navajo and angry about all the right things.

She had a scholarship, she was going to be a doctor, she loved children.

He was his mother's only son, and they were poor, but stubborn about it.

He ran barefoot at first, but after the scouts spotted him, he ran in off-brand New Balances.

He first developed symptoms on the way to her funeral.

Sixteen

1492- Fucking Europeans

what seems to have been the case
was that yaws
spread among Taino boys and girls
while they were playing.

years later,
some of those little girls grew into women
who still carried the pathogen.
then they were raped.

while the rape was in progress
the unwashed skin of the Spaniards,
chest, belly, penises,
was broached by the yaws causal agent.

this is what we think happened.

Fifteen

1975: Lyme Connecticut- Something Is Wrong Here

Arthritic oaks in the suburbs of Connecticut
-like walking on marbles, that fall in the forest-
and the deer have come.

We watch them from behind the windows of the family hatchback.
On the neighbor's lawn, they sway like statues on the verge of something.
Glassed over brown eyes, and father buries the body behind the woodpile.

The newspapers tell us that we are both in the glorious endtimes
and that we are divorced from all animate things.
That we know. Mother's on her second marriage. We don't talk about it.

We are caught in surges of Saudi oil,
gobalization sings cheerful company anthems,
our president seems nice, and we're out of Vietnam.

But, still.
Last night, a deer stood on the double yellow lines of Park Street.
Florescent streetlights watched impartially as her legs buckled
and finally collasped;
lay in the road, gasping.

Fourteen, for truth

Cascades of Acorns and The Woods in Zaire

What I need you to know is that all things are connected.
It's all umbilical cords and atoms that sing ambiguous pronoun love songs
across transatlantic cable lines.

(sometimes, when I think about meeting the Designer of all this breakdown
I think about asking Him if He underestimated Disease, and Desire)

Because I believe in the glorious Maker&Breaker because the watch cogs are strewn
across field hospitals in Tanzania and Palestine.
I believe in revenge as a way of life
because The Shape Of All Things and The Ambiguity Around The Edges,
He saw that.

He saw us as we ate the roast thigh of the endangered golden tamarin
saw us shit in the water
saw the virgin baobab fall
(and it is always us, isn't it? anything you do, i do my dear/
and whatever is done only by me is your doing my darling)

And we are all feeling the whiplash snapback from the slow motion car crash
- filmed in California, index case in Kuala Lampur, and the death toll mounts in Berlin,
tonight at ten-

It used to be rickets,
bones bowed, and baby was too blissed out on opium to cry,
and we're all gonna die young, I promise, so who cares?
If some of us do it with insulin and some of us do it with girls&boys our mothers wouldn't like

And I need you to listen, alright?
The only thing left that really scares me is Ebola and that scares me.
Compassion fatigue doesn't have a CDC approved treatment, not yet, not ever.

We need to get out of here before the viruses have us by the throats,
but there's no place left to go.

Twist your hand in mine, take the vaccine.
We're gonna make it out alive, promise.

Thirteen, what luck to have made it this far

Sooooo, guys. This is my like, show -offy poem for poets. This is about the Arawak people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arawak) that Colombus encountered when he first landed. It's written from their perspective, because so little of their culture has survived due to their lack of a written language. It uses the Fibonnacci sequence, (0, 1,1,2,3,5,8 and so on) and every line that's a Fibonnacci number is a lie.

We Are Happy to Have You Here

There is plenty of of gold, bleeding from the mountain like gods' blood. Yes. We will fill the hawk's bell for you and we can do it until the stars unspiral.

(we find your ships impressive.
even now we are speaking of your swords in hushed tones, in caves.)

You were right, senor. We will make fine servants for your queen,
dressed in emeralds and moors-cloth. That is
if we don't sweat to death, bleed out in ways the court doesn't talk about.

The land here is good. You do not like the way we throw the seeds on the earth
trustinng that the arc of the universe bends towards justice and life.
Our games are complex. You will not bother to write down the rules.

When the dogs come, we will not run. Even as they eat
our children, we will lift our face to you, still trusting
your book, your greatness.

We did not go naked to offend you. The air is so warm
and the warmth hums around our bodies. We wish you would join us.

Your god sounds frightening. We will trust in the spirits
who speak to us without incense. Our spirits sound
like our dead sisters, yours sound like smallpox.

We do not regret welcoming you. It was a good decision.
We continue to prosper.

12, and so many to go

The Conversation Redirects Itself

Let’s not talk of love or chains or things we can’t untie.

Let’s talk instead about the world as a place to fall asleep

and link pinkies and promise to do nothing to disturb the sleep

of a woman about to give birth.

And talk sideways, about the diorama in the Museum of Natural Science

of a boy who died of pulmonary tuberculosis two thousand years ago

and how they discovered him with the bison hide still tucked around

his wasted body.

(let’s not talk about who tucked it, and if his mother was inconsolable)

Why don’t we talk about Norma Jean, and shooting stars

and how you can tell some things are going to crash and burn,

you just don’t know how.

We used to talk about dugongs and Falkland foxes and passenger pigeons,

we don’t anymore.

Instead, we talk about the Violent Femme and

take ten for everything, everything, everything

and the hitch of hope in your chest that feels like kickdrum and bass,

in the best way.

Let’s talk about those uncivil and unstable creatures

who are permanently banned from the zoo,

the bad influence girls who need their warmth a little less metaphorical

(duvets and hot water bottles, even in California).

The conversation redirects itself.

The things we don’t discuss are as powerful as the things we do,

There is so little left to be afraid of.

The city’s asleep and the world is ours. Come, see and be conquered.