Julene Tripp Weaver
Dues Paid
Watching death up close
nursing through sickness
holding hands in welfare
offices, going with a client
to get him hooked up with
an infectious disease doctor
at the VA, writing killer letters
to social security disability
stating my position, my
experience with the client
letters that turned the case
around. I was a terror, proud
to take on the difficult, to sit
with the dying, hold grief for
hundreds of souls. The stress
for eighteen years through
a war, making only enough
in return, the reward, knowing
what I did mattered. If there is a
heaven I doubt I have to worry.
Julene Tripp Weaver is the author of the poetry collection Truth be Bold—Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS (Finishing Line Press, 2017), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards for Bisexual Nonfiction, and won the Bisexual Book Award. Her poems have appeared in The Seattle Review of Books, Poetry Pacific, Mad Swirl, and Antinarrative Journal. Weaver is a psychotherapist in Seattle, WA. More of her writing can be found at julenetrippweaver.com.
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Here is today’s prompt
(optional as always)
The speaker of today’s poem is an allied healthcare professional—one of the nurses, physician assistants, counselors, and others who provide medical or psychosocial support services to people with HIV/AIDS. Write a poem on any HIV/AIDS-related topic that includes the presence of an allied healthcare professional, or in the voice of an allied healthcare professional.