John Whittier Treat
Sweat: A History
With Thanks to Dorothy Allison
I was twelve and learned to clean my new rifle with gun oil. It stank like sweat.
I was thirteen and helped my father change the oil in the pick-up truck. It stank like his sweat.
I was fourteen and used baby oil with drops of iodine in it to protect my girl’s bare back from the sun. Her longing stank like sweat.
I was fifteen and the man coated his dick with spit before putting it in me. My longing stank like sweat.
I was twenty-eight and our lube on the nightstand smelled sweet, like sweat.
I was thirty-two and the drugs I snorted up my nose smelled sweet, like sweat.
I was forty and my dying boyfriend’s vomit and piss and shit smelled sweet, like sweat.
I will be old and the priest’s holy oil on my forehead will smell sweet, like sweat.
John Whittier Treat is the author of the novel The Rise and Fall of the Yellow House (Big Table Publishing Company, 2015), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction. His short stories have appeared in the journal Jonathan and the anthology QDA: Queer Disability Anthology (Squares and Rebels, 2015), edited by Raymond Luczak. Now a professor emeritus of East Asian languages and literature at Yale University, he holds a BA from Amherst College (1975) and a PhD from Yale (1982). Originally from New Haven, he now lives in Seattle.
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Here is today’s prompt
(optional as always)
A final prompt for National (HIV) Poetry (Writing) Month: Today’s poem goes beyond a typical refrain to use what we might call a formula: Every line begins with “I was” plus the speakers age, and ends with “stank like sweat.” Write a poem about any aspect of HIV/AIDS that uses a formula of your own devising.