WEDNESDAYS WITH DENISE: July 10, 2024

For today’s offering, here’s Sandra Yannone’s gorgeously long, skinny, balloon string of a poem which was first published in SWWIM on May 17. The shape of the poem also invokes the emaciated bodies of that era—and her deft line breaks slow us down on this elegiac path.

 

At the AIDS Walk in My Pre-Gay Twenties

 

Years ago

now

 

I walked

among

 

the dying.

I was

 

already dead.

I was

 

a shroud

of skin

 

wrapped

around bones

 

no one

could touch.

 

This is

one version

 

of what

it means

 

to be

dead.

 

Around me,

often circling,

 

teetering

like metal

 

candelabra

angels,

 

were

too plenty

 

of the others

dying, who

 

in the moment

had outlived

 

1. Mostly

middle-aged

 

gay men

dying

 

into

their shadows.

 

We all walked

for miles,

 

for each other,

for liberation,

 

for purification,

for healing, for life.

 

The walks began

and ended

 

with swan boats

in the Boston

 

Public

Garden.

 

By the time

I crossed

 

the bridge

at the finish

 

line, under

a rainbow

 

of tethered

balloons,

 

more among me

were that many

 

steps closer

to death,

 

the air

exhausted

 

in their

lungs

 

labored

further

 

heaving,

sighing,

 

some pulsing

into oxygen

 

masks

while seated

 

in wheelchairs,

escorted

 

by lovers

and friends,

 

some who

would not

 

be

permitted

 

to witness

their beloved’s

 

final

grasps

 

for air

before

 

the lights

blew out

 

behind

their eyes.

 

But this day,

sunlight.

 

Every AIDS walk,

sunlight.

 

We would walk

into the sun

 

for miles

beaming

 

before

together

 

we

would burn

 

our skin

always

 

like flash

paper

 

ready

to combust.

 

 

Comments

[Judy Ireland]

Deeply moving - thank you for choosing this excellent poem by Sandra Yannone, Denise!

[Susan Aizenberg]

Wonderful poem. Thanks, Denise!