WEBVTT

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I came of age at the height
of the AIDS epidemic,

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in the '80s and '90s.

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And the only images
of gay men I saw

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were the skeletal,
death-kissed figures on the TV.

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And that kind of left a
huge psychic and emotional

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wound that I really can't
talk about in my work,

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except in magically
real, surreal ways.

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"Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndrome."

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"At a quarter to
midnight, blue beetles

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crawling along the minute hand
of the wall clock, I awaken,

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panicked, next to my lover,
a camel hued cello asleep

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on embroidered linen.

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A light bulb blazes, burns out--

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a does flash of white tail
that instructs the fawn

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to follow its mother in flight.

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I hurry down the
hallway, through a door,

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into a pasture where
mules are grazing.

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Moonlight floats in the air
like coarse cloth, silver

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speckled and woven on
the looms of mirrors.

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Once I tore into the
torso of my cello

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and discovered its heart--

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a pair of horse shoes
caked with red clay.

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The mules surround me--

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necks bent, nostrils pluming
out different lengths of breath.

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I toss off my robe.

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A mule curls its tongue
around my erection.

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I throw my head back, and stare
at the slowest lightning--

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the stars."

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