with thanks
once again to
Michael Broder

HIV Here & Now Project

Poem 24 ±
​November 24, 2019
Poem-a-day run-up to World AIDS Day 2019

​Interrogation Survival Techniques circa 1988
​
“And how were you infected?” she asks and if it weren’t for the
non-disclosure clause I would tell her about the side effects of
alien-abduction-time-travel where an orgy of mosquitos the size
of pterodactyls had their stinging way with me, and the retired
CIA officer who water-boarded me with the effluent of 37
Congolese rendition detainees, or the deep state copycat
cleansing twist on Kalki as predicted by Gore Vidal, or maybe
it was the government health study I signed up for when
I couldn’t make my rent.

“Did you get a transfusion?” she continues because we all know
that is the only way to get it without shame or disgust. I should
tell her about the Vampires of Venice that nearly drained me.
I had to break into a local blood bank and top myself off w/8
frosty pints of Type-O, ninety degrees and I still drove home
with the heater on.

“Do you know how long you have been infected?” There’s no way
to answer this yet. It will be decades of midnite calls & obits before
I google and conjure all the dead, and at that point they just laugh,
“What’s taking you so long?” they ask --or is that her?

“Who should we contact in an emergency?”  Hmm, an emergency,
well, MacGyver? Or, Dr. Who? Or that severe black-suited fellow
from Person of Interest, you know he was Jesus too.
No, Glinda, the Good Witch, yes, contact Glinda, `and MacGyver,
and the wrinkly old War Doctor regeneration of Dr. Who.