Ada Limón
AIDS
It was my nickname
in elementary school.
Short for Ada and said
so cherishingly. Cool
for a nickname, swift
and easily shouted.
Until the ominous
bloom spread even
to the eight-year-olds
under the white oaks
who didn’t know much,
except not to call me
that word anymore. Most
went back to saying
Ada. Others went longer,
Adidas. We knew a word
for shame now, for fear,
so we buried it without
speaking. This, I’m afraid,
was our first cutting out
of the tongue, our first
lesson in silence.
Ada Limón is the author of Bright Dead Things (Milkweed Editions, 2015), a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in Poetry and the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award as well as being cited as one of the Top Ten Poetry Books of the Year by The New York Times. Her other books include Lucky Wreck (Autumn House Press, 2006), This Big Fake World (Pearl Editions, 2006), and Sharks in the Rivers (Milkweed Editions, 2010). Ada serves on the faculty of the Queens University of Charlotte Low Residency MFA program and the 24Pearl Street online program for the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. She also works as a freelance writer splitting her time between Lexington, Kentucky and Sonoma, California.
This poem is not previously published.
Donald Illich is the author of Rocket Children (2012) and The Art of Dissolving (Finishing Line Press, 2016). His work has appeared in Iowa Review, LIT, Nimrod, Passages North, Rattle, and Sixth Finch, among many other journals. He lives in Rockville, Md.
Ruben Quesada is editor of Queen Mob’s Tea House and a freelance developmental editor. He is the author of Next Extinct Mammal (Greenhouse Review Press, 2011) and Exiled from the Throne of Night: Selected Translations of Luis Cernuda (Aureole Press, 2008). His writing and digital media appear in numerous journals and anthologies. Find more at 
J.M. Templet’s work has appeared in Triggerfish, Counterexample Poetics, Marathon Literary Review, Strong Verse, Dig, Crossed Genres, and Fae Fatales. She took third place in the St. Louis Writer’s Guild short story contest in 2016. J.M. graduated from LSU several years ago and earned the Matt Clark prize in short fiction there. She recently earned a Master of Library and Information Science degree at Texas Woman’s University. J.M. lives in Baton Rouge where she works in a public library.
Nancy L. Meyer’s work has appeared in Colorado Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Bitterzoet, Poet’s Touchstone, Wordland, and Kneel Downe’s Stolen Indie as well as five anthologies. New work is forthcoming in Bitterzoet Magazine and Persimmon Tree. Nancy was a finalist in the New Orleans Poetry Festival 2016. Avid cyclist, grandmother of 5, and End of Life Counselor, Nancy lives in Portola Valley, Calif.
Ina Roy-Faderman started writing fiction and poetry while in medical school, and started publishing after completing her MD and starting a PhD in medical ethics. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Punchnel’s, Pif Magazine, Writer’s Digest Magazine, and Right Hand Pointing. She is the editor of a volume of poetry from the August Postcard Poetry Festival, forthcoming from Five Oaks Press. Ina lives near San Francisco, where she works as school librarian and literacy coordinator at a school for gifted children. Ina also teaches philosophy long-distance for Oregon State University.
Jeremy Dixon lives in rural South Wales making Artist’s Books that combine poetry and photography. His poems have appeared in The Found Poetry Review, Really System, Riptide Journal, Roundyhouse and other journals. For more information visit 
Minister Tela LaRaine Love is an artist, advocate, and activist from New Orleans, Louisiana. She is co-founder of New Legacy Ministries, a grassroots organization striving to raise the voices of marginalized communities, including transgender women of color. Through her experience and passion as a media personality, peer counselor and youth mentor she has excelled in maintaining a positive online and in-person community presence for transgender women of color. She has served on the New Orleans Regional AIDS Planning Council and is a member of the Positive Women’s Network, a volunteer at NO/AIDS Task Force, and an ally of Women with a Vision, BreakOUT, Center for Ethical Living and Social Justice Renewal. Tela has participated in a Human Rights Watch data collection effort in New Orleans to stop the unfair harassment of transgender and commercial sex worker populations and to support access to syringe and clean needle exchange in New Orleans.
Kenneth Wagner’s work has appeared in Recently published in Synesthesia Literary Journal, Hanging Loose, and Rattle. He lives in Sammamish, Washington.
Larry D. Thacker is the author of Mountain Mysteries: The Mystic Traditions of Appalachia (Overmountain Press, 2007) and the poetry chapbooks Voice Hunting (Finishing Line Press, 2011) and Memory Train (Finishing Line Press, 2015). His poems have appeared in The Still Journal, Unbroken Journal, Mojave River Review, and other journals, as well as in Southern Poetry Anthology VI: Tennessee (Texas Review Press, 2013). A student services higher education professional for fifteen years, he is now completing an MFA at West Virginia Wesleyan College.