students sought
to garner truth
shoveled between HIV statistics
and Africa’s name
that day we garnered scaled truth and gossamer-clad solutions.
a stylish man demanded, ‘it’s because…
it’s because of their dwarfed educability
…that’s why they suffer’
sharply swiveled pupils glower,
at this man--then
I hear darts whiz at the boy’s throat.
An interrogation crescendos like TV static:
‘who’s they
and with this they, who’s their,
do you really know?’
‘Do you know ‘their’ mercenary pharmaceutical companies,
is it the children or the adults,
is it their ‘beliefs’, ‘their’ poverty
or ‘their’ recreation in which you find fault’
and which
part of the civilization’s cradle
do you brandish in vain.’
Inside, we asked why he thinks this way;
but mouths only pitched,
‘Is it ‘because they don’t have your education or
you just think they blindly
swallow witch-doctored prescriptions.’
School desks cornered this mannish boy,
accents gauzed him in silky,
queries
until he emerged as a wilting moth
sopping up, sucking on a single thread.
‘…but this same argument came from an African-American
so I’m not racist, I’m right’
he stumbled off his stage
stamped with eyes on his back
wishing to pin his wings.
medical anthropology class
students sought
to garner truth.
what we plucked
was poised anger and helplessness
about AIDS.
« return.