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Michael Broder: My First Ten Plague Years

May 16, 2011 by PBQ

When I think of how it began,
I enter an endless regression—
before the visit to the counselor’s office,
blood draw, awful flu in May,
before I let Tony fuck me raw to say I was sorry.

But that wasn’t the first time.
The first time I got fucked was in 1984.
We already knew what was risky–
I took his cum anyway.
They didn’t have a virus yet;
I chose to believe it was something else,
poppers or multiple partners–
some cofactor of a gayness I was too
ingénue to have indulged.

I deserved to have one time skin to skin,
at least the first one,
at least that.

Filed Under: contributors 69, Issue 69, Poetry, Poetry 69 Tagged With: Contributors 69, Michael Broder, Poetry, Poetry 69

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