To The Poet Whose Lover Has Died Of AIDS

By Kenny Fries

...then the wasting begins and the disappearance a day at a time. -- Mark Doty

The night of your reading I notice he has carved
a place for his wheelchair. But after the first
poem, through the applause, the noise of moving
out of his way. Then, only the space remains
and nobody, not even those standing, eyeing
what was his position, will take his place.
The next day, when you tell me he wet himself
and could not stay, I think how leaving causes so much
commotion, how in school during rollcall the teacher
never knew how long to wait for the voice, present,
before moving on to the next name in the order.
The tittering, the shifting in chairs, when it went on
too long. When you first told me he was sick,
I could not ask if you, too, were infected --
I searched your poems for clues. Now he has died
and I have gone back to read your poems, needing
your words to prove love does not disappear
a day at a time. All those years together,
over a decade of loss, and I don't know
what's left to say. If we are given love
only to have it taken away, what solace
can anyone offer but your voice be present
among the shifting chairs, the embarrassed noises
of absence. The wait is always too long.