Sara Teasdale
There Will Come Soft Rains

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools, singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) was the author of several collections including Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems (1907), Helen of Troy and Other Poems (1911), Rivers to the Sea (1915), the Pulitzer Prize-winning Love Songs (1917), Flame and Shadow (1920), Dark of the Moon (1926), and Stars To-night (1930). She was born in St. Louis and moved to New York in 1916 where she lived until her death.

This poem appeared in Flame and Shadow.

Christoper Soto
Untitled

A few weeks ago I walked into the doctor’s office to get a routine physical & blood work. Nothing to be ashamed about. The nurse, when reading off my papers started to whisper the tests I was getting. “HIV” she said as if it were a secret something to be embarrassed about, as if my faggotry had pre-diagnosed me, and I began thinking of Susan Sontag’s Illness As Metaphor in which she writes, “In Stendhal’s Armance (1827), the hero’s mother refuses to say ‘tuberculosis’ for fear that pronouncing the word will hasten the course of her son’s malady.” And Karl Menninger has observed (in The Vital Balance), “The very word ‘cancer’ is said to kill some patients who would not have succumbed (so quickly) to the malignancy from which they suffer.” Here HIV becomes an association of everything “bad.” Here HIV becomes a metaphor for whatever the imagination will allow. Here HIV is not allowed to be MERELY a disease or part of a person’s health. Here health is criminalized. Lately I have been thinking about shame as another form of disease. I have been thinking about that nurse in the office and my test results. And I don’t want to be ashamed of my health or yours.

Christopher Soto (aka Loma) is a queer latinx punk poet & prison abolitionist. They were named one of “Ten Up and Coming Latinx Poets You Need to Know” by Remezcla. They were named one of “Seven Trans and Gender Non-Conforming Artists Doing the Work” by The Offing. Poets & Writers will be honoring Christopher Soto with the “Barnes & Nobles Writer for Writers Award” in 2016. They founded Nepantla: A Journal Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color with the Lambda Literary Foundation. They cofounded The Undocupoets Campaign in 2015. Their poetry has been called political surrealist and focuses on domestic violence, queer youth homelessness, and mass incarceration. They received an MFA in poetry from NYU, where they studied with Eileen Myles, Yusef Komunyakaa, Marie Howe, Brenda Shaughnessy, and Major Jackson. Originally from the Los Angeles area; they now live in Brooklyn.

This poem is not previously published.

Eduardo Martinez-Leyva
Mute

These creatures come for me,
asking that I sing.

Each one strange: bareheaded, pierced flesh,
a tongue cleaved for someone else’s pleasure.

Hungry for flowers, they populate my dreams,
even when I mouthed a dead language

into the clean, celebrated air.
For them, I’d think of doing

the unspeakable, bring my face closer
to their appetite. No prayer in my throat

could make me sweeter. I’ve been told
the easiest animals are the first to bare their necks

for an audience. If true, grant me the will to not be
blood-shy. Give me a flock to feel celestial.

Just this once, I’ll drape myself in malice,
surrender to the season’s error, to the noise

I’ll have a lifetime to revisit.
Give me a lifetime.

Eduardo Martinez-Leyva’s poems have appeared in Assaracus, Apogee Journal, Nepantla: A Journal for Queer Poets of Color and Best New Poets 2015 (selected by Tracy K. Smith). He received his MFA from Columbia University, where he was a teaching fellow. He grew up in El Paso, Texas and currently lives in New York City. He is a CantoMundo fellow.

This poem is not previously published.

Sam Sax
Risk

how harrowing the paradox of latex. on one hand the paragon of intimacy, on the other a
glove like a father loved more in his absence. my paramour, my minotaur, my matador
flashing his red sword. dear condemnation, i have read all the commentaries of raw,
how the forbidden fruit grows less sweet the more you gorge on it. i’ve seen the formal
debates where two gaping wounds stand behind podiums + reach into each other’s
mouths. discourse, its own form of pleasure. pleasure at its most broken down,
a series of shapes. ethnographies bleed from the ivory tower, the tower made of animal
teeth. the distance between theory + practice is a slick laceration. it’s right there
in the name, unprotected, to be laid out before the animal in him, to be defenseless
+ deforested. perhaps this works out better in myth:

he pilots my body across a waterbed
full of drowned fish. in the distance, women
sing us toward shore.

or perhaps, it’s best to end in images:

a handful of gravel, the open ground,
a groveling mouth, a grave half full of water
with my body not in it yet.

Sam Sax is the author of the poetry collections A Guide to Undressing Your Monsters (Button Poetry, 2014), sad boy / detective (Black Lawrence Press, 2015) and the forthcoming All The Rage (Sibling Rivalry, 2016). His poems appear or are forthcoming in The Beloit Poetry Journal, Best New Poets, Boston Review, Indiana Review, Pleiades, New England Review, Poetry Magazine, Prelude, and other journals. Sam was a 2015 NEA Fellow and a finalist for The Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. A two-time Bay Area Grand Slam Champion, Sam is currently a Poetry Fellow at The Michener Center for Writers where he serves as the Editor-in-chief of Bat City Review.

This poem appeared in Apogee.

Jeannie E. Roberts
HIV Positive, circa 1990

―for Doug Wyland

That day you stepped into the gallery,
sun at your back,

walking elegantly in chiaroscuro silhouette,
the glass wall gleamed

and so did you. Like Michelangelo’s David,
you appeared as the chiseled

Goliath of health, and I held joy
in the luminosity of your presence.

With a smile you asked, “Lunch soon?”

It’s been decades since that visit,
and I had no idea

that rendered within the light and shadow
of that afternoon,

where the shape, colors, and aesthetics
of life shone before me,

our exchange was more than an invitation
to lunch, it was an exquisite,

artistically delivered, parting-gift.

I recall the voice on the phone explaining,
“Suicide by car exhaust

was far better
than what was coming.”

Jeannie E. Roberts is the author of the poetry collections Beyond Bulrush (Lit Fest Press, 2015), Nature of it All (Finishing Line Press, 2013), and the author and illustrator of the children’s book Let’s Make Faces! (Rhyme the Roost Books, 2009). Jeannie lives in an inspiring rural setting near Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin where she draws, paints, and often photographs her natural surroundings. Learn more about Jeannie at www.jrcreative.biz.

Lisa Andrews
Your Stories

I did not think the book of you would be done so soon.
I saw you as endless—multivolume, a set. You were the novel,
the book to which I could always turn, a story I could open
on any page, the way they say old friends can always continue
the conversation, pick up wherever they’ve left off, the way
that afternoon in the sudden rain, you welcomed us as if
you’d been expecting us all along, and the heavy rain
had been no accident at all, but a plot device, so that we
might sit by your fire and listen, as you told us your latest story—
screenplay, science fiction or script—back when all of us were young,
and I was almost careless in the driven rain.

Lisa Andrews is the author of Dear Liz, forthcoming in spring 2016 from Indolent Books. Her poems have appeared in Gargoyle, Mudfish, Painted Bride Quarterly and Zone 3. While completing her MFA at NYU, Lisa worked with poetry students at Goldwater Hospital and Bayview Correctional Facility and taught in the Expository Writing Program. Chosen by Dael Orlandersmith as a recipient of the New Voice Poetry Award from the Writer’s Voice of the West Side YMCA, Lisa has had residencies at Blue Mountain Center, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Vermont Studio Center. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, artist Tony Geiger.

This poem is not previously published.

Emily Dickinson
Because I could not stop for Death (479)

Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.

We slowly drove—He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility—

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess—in the Ring—
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—

Or rather—He passed us—
The Dews drew quivering and chill—
For only Gossamer, my Gown—
My Tippet—only Tulle—

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
The Cornice—in the Ground—

Since then—‘tis Centuries—and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity—

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) was born in Amherst, Massachusetts. Fewer than a dozen of her poems were published during her lifetime. After her death, her sister Lavinia discovered a trove of nearly 1800 poems leading to the publication of her first collection in 1890. Until Thomas H. Johnson published Dickinson’s Complete Poems in 1955, her work was considerably edited and altered from its manuscript form. Along with Walt Whitman, Dickinson is now considered the bedrock of modern American poetry.

Catherine Martens
Rewind a Positive Life

Can you believe it 17 years living as a positive female I’m sitting here on my bed just rewinding my life the last 17 years I had my ups and downs my mountains to climb my oceans to swim I hit rock bottom but I got myself back up again I found the strength in me I found the strength in the Lord. What a trip this has been. People ask me every day how did you get here in life, this very moment. I respond with this is how it all began…

At the age of 18 I was raped and beaten by someone I thought was a friend someone I trusted someone I had faith in well he turned out not to be a friend he was the devil as evil can come he kept me prisoner in his house raping me and beating me over and over again for three long days till he finally passed out I ran I ran so fast I wasn’t looking back I ran for blocks no shoes no coat just a button-down shirt I found as I ran out the door it was cold and at least four feet of snow I didn’t care I wasn’t stopping I kept running till a police officer saw me and took me to the hospital after being examined the police officer came in and started asking me so many questions I was scared and afraid what was my mom going to say and my boyfriend how do I tell him I couldn’t think straight I was going crazy in the end the guy was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years about four years into his sentence the Brooklyn D.A. called me to tell me he was killed in a prison riot. I didn’t feel anything I wasn’t happy or sad I felt cheated I had to live life remembering what he did and he doesn’t have to. A few months passed and I found out that I was pregnant the timing had me unsure if my boyfriend of a year who stood by my side throughout this whole ordeal was the father or was it the guy who raped me. Back then I was a strong Catholic and decided that I would have the baby my boyfriend said it didn’t matter if he was the father or not that my baby was his and he would raise the baby as his own.

Five years later we gave birth to a baby girl we were the all American family we both had jobs a nice home two wonderful children a boy and now a girl we had it all until my boyfriend got sick and had to go into the hospital he had pneumonia and TB. Turns out he tested positive for HIV right away I was tested and I was negative I chose to stay with him I loved him and he stood by me when I was raped. Life started to get hard he couldn’t work no more and I had to quit working to care for him and the kids three and a half years later he passed away from pneumonia we had ten beautiful years together we loved each other to death and we had amazing kids. I wouldn’t trade a moment we shared together for nothing. I will always have my memories of us.

A year later I decided it’s time to make a change and we moved to long island in hopes to start a new life. Two years later I met someone who I married after dating for seven months and thirteen months later I got pregnant with my third child when I was six months pregnant I was called into my doctors office she said she needs to talk to me about some tests I had I asked for an appointment but she insisted on it ASAP it was Christmas eve of 98 I remember it clear as day I walked into the office and my doctor was already there and so was my nurse I had a seat and I remember my nurse placing a box of tissues in front of me and the doctor started to tell me I tested positive for HIV what you’re wrong I always get tested you know that you have been testing me for a couple of years now I was six months pregnant and HIV-positive what did this mean how, how could this be I never had sex with no other guy except for my ex who passed away and my husband turns out he knew he was positive and decided not to tell me my life was falling apart again the doctors put me on meds right away and because they did my daughter was born HIV-negative I could no longer love him and the sight of him just got me sick to my stomach I really hated him for taking my right away he made the decision for me when in fact he had no right I wanted a divorce and he would not give me one he would not let me leave with my daughter they told me I could go but she was staying and if I tried to go he would stop me so for the next 7 months after my daughter was born I lived in hell with him until one day he was stupid and committed a crime he went to prison for 7 years I was relieved when I sat there in the courtroom and heard the judge say the sentence I felt a relief in my body of peace I knew now I can get away and start over again.

Now here I was a mother of three who is HIV-positive starting over for the second time I was scared I was afraid I felt shame I was embarrassed I didn’t know how to tell my family or my friends I didn’t want them looking down on me judging me blaming me my mom she cried when I told her but she stood by my side all the time most of my family stood by my side my friends as well I couldn’t stay in the house no more it reminded me of my husband too much so I took my three children and moved to a different part of Long Island.

Two years later I was on my way to work it was 8:46 in the morning when I stepped off the elevator on the 78th floor of the North Tower of the Twin Towers when the first plane hit us I didn’t know what hit us I didn’t know what was going on all I know I was in pain I was scared people crying there were dead people next to me hurt people all I know if I could hear my children calling me calling out mommy please come home that is all I remember I woke up in the hospital I had a broken shoulder and a broken leg and a lot of cuts and bruises but I was alive and I think that was because of the will and love of my children. I can’t say I am recovered because I always have nightmares if not about 9/11 then it’s about my rape or the betrayal of my husband.

A few years later I was diagnosed with HPV and vulvar cancer. Then five years later I was diagnosed with cervical cancer just this month I was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor on my spine. And through everything I have gone through I am so grateful to be here still. I am a fighter always was always will be. I am very active in my HIV community I am co-chair for our Ryan White part D program I have been chair and co-chair of a few different Ryan White committees I am a mentor for other HIV-positive people in my state I am a certified health educator for not only my state but nationwide. I have written grants and proposals to receive funding for programs to help support people living with HIV and AIDS I had the opportunity to attend five different conferences on HIV and I speak to youth groups and I have gone into our high schools to educate the teachers on the basics of HIV and AIDS.

I don’t believe I am being punished for anything I did I believe I am right where I am meant to be in my life GOD did not put me here to suffer he put me here to be his warrior and to fight this till the end and I might have fallen a few times but I always get back up on my own two feet and I spread the word you don’t have to feel ashamed or lonely we are here and we aren’t going nowhere. I am doing great with my HIV health care. My viral load is undetectable and I am strong and living a beautiful blessed life. Please don’t ever give up on yourself know your worth and share it. I am strong I am a survivor I am a warrior.

Catherine Martens is a single mother of three awesome children ages 29, 24, and 16. She is a proud grandmother of a beautiful 7 year old little princess. Catherine lives on Long Island where she works as a mentor and health educator for the state of New York. Family means the world to Catherine and over the years she has found that you don’t have to be blood to be family. She believes she is truly blessed to have the life she has.

The essay is not previously published.

Steven Sanchez
Certain Other Infections

Men who have had sex with other men, at any time since 1977 … are currently deferred as blood donors. This is because MSM are, as a group, at increased risk for HIV, hepatitis B and certain other infections that can be transmitted by transfusion.
—United States Food and Drug Administration, 1985—2015

The infections must be Prada heels, hooked
into the side of Hepatitis B’s protein coat
like some runway where I design
high end fashion nobody will wear
outside, like a peacock’s tail flared
out in a woman’s dress, gender confused,
making it impossible to sit. Or is it
the way HIV thrusts into human
cells, the way two men can push?
Neither can reproduce on their own.
We have RNA and phospholipid membranes
in common—the way we touch
the world, exchange information
through bilayers of fat and muscle,
unzip our genes, break hydrogen
bonds, and replicate into each other
to feel the rush of what we must keep.

Steven Sanchez is a Lambda Literary Fellow and was recently selected for a 2016 CantoMundo Fellowship. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from California State University, Fresno and his poems have previously appeared or are forthcoming in Nimrod, Crab Creek Review, Tahoma Literary Review, and Assaracus, among others. He currently teaches at Fresno City College.

This poem appeared in Assaracus.