Matt Broomfield
Gaudete
A US-based Instagram account called “GaysOverCovid” has been documenting gay men breaking lockdown regulations for holidays and circuit parties and shaming them with stern, condemnatory captions.
—James Greig on Huck
Holy fucking hell, my friends, when AIDS
Consumed the marrow of our bones
The circuit-parties did not stop; we knew
that forma bonum fragile est
That all we had was slenderness
The fact we could be snapped
It was not then and is not now
The furtive cowboys in the park
Pinch-cheeked teens in the ivy,
Rustling, just barely touching
But touching nonetheless. Gaudete
My storming boys, we are
Machines of joy, and as they need
Their coming-home for Christmas gyms
So we lost boys need our dancery
Our shot at life in the glistening dark
For you, the old, have had your chance;
You lost; you died; now let us live.
—Submitted on 01/05/2021
Matt Broomfield is a bisexual writer and queer activist. His work has appeared in Plenitude, Argot, Anti-Heroin Chic, Tahoma Literary Review, Glass Poetry, and other journals. Broomfield lives in the autonomous Kurdish region of Rojava, where he works in solidarity with the women-led, direct-democratic revolution.
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