Charles K. Morris
Limbo of Isolation
Turned to the wall written with sweat,
smeared with expellations of patient generations,
geography she studies minute by hour
to find the path back
to her life
before the gossamer curtained limbo of isolation
in a room full of people who refuse to see her.
The only touch she feels is her own caress
of sweat
and humid weep of the wall she traces.
The virus she didn’t ask for
that drags her back to childhood
shrinking her to a younger self
before he took her life with shared love.
She cannot see this fragile beauty
as a bell-jarred Haitian orchid.
All day to the wall
as if to see through to the other side
of the sea
where she can wander
invisible amongst the happy healthy
who cannot see what is not
on a screen in their life.
She cannot be touched there either
nor shunned
just ignored by the race
to gather everything
before the spine cold creeps in.
Inhumanity lied to her parents,
deceived everyone
until its awesome power squeezes
from inside
her withering beautiful body.
Charles K. Morris is a medical doctor who has worked in Haiti since the earthquake in 2010. He has helped run and staff a heart failure program at Hospital Albert Schweitzer, where the staff treats largely young women with peripartum cardiomyopathy, many of whom are HIV-positive. Dr. Morris writes; “I have always been struck by the social isolation and abandonment of these women with HIV which causes depression and lack of hope, often resulting in a premature death when we can actually treat the actual disease.” The JAMA (the journal of the American Medical Association) has published some of his other poems about Haiti.
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Here is today’s prompt
(optional as always)
Today’s poem is about HIV/AIDS in a country other than the United States. Write a poem set in another country about any HIV/AIDS-related topic.