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.