National Poetry Month

[brigdh]

13 Jennifer Murphy

you cannot fall
in love with a man
who has HIV
she said
you cannot fall
you cannot fall
you cannot fall
in love
and statistics
and statistics say
he is doomed
but
he has been positive
for 13 years
he is 32
he is covered in tattoos
and when he moves
he looks
like a living painting
he looks
like a chunk of the Sistine Chapel
he burns like shrapnel
through threads of my skin
and HIV and HIV is
fatal
and so is cancer and I
am in remission and it
could come back
and kill me
and life
is also fatal and you
could be hit by a taxi
or my fist
flying across this
heap of vegetables
and he could be alive
for another
13
years