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From A Partial History of Zero
Around the Pool in the Jaundiced Light of Morning
Amateur Night at Caesar’s
Each Partial Sum in a Limit is Finite
Lipodystrophy, My Darling
Rationals and Irrationals Make Up the Real
Laurie Rosenblatt, M.D.
larosenbl@yahoo.com
These poems come from A Partial History of Zero, a chapbook dedicated to my brother, Tom, who died of AIDS after living a full but too short life as a gay man in the 1980’s.
***
Around the Pool in the Jaundiced Light of Morning
Boys’ bodies recline on plastic chairs in variant
pietàs. Night remains beneath
beardless chins, in the folds of arms. Tom lies
unconscious, a slender ankle crossed over the other,
a line of charcoal tracing his shadowed groin.
His arm dangles, wrist bent against dew-wet
Concrete, palm up-turned, cupping sun. The rise
and retreat of his chest, the nipples adorned with a few
soft hairs, move in time with the surf. Last night,
in the below-grade window of the Marlin Beach’s poolside
bar, the boys swam naked, competing in stiff schools
for drinks and a bed for part of the night.
The pack of married men belled and bayed.
Now boys stir: the sun mounts, rutting fire.
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***
Drag queens take the mic in turn
flickering shocked brows as they lip synch
teetering on two- inch heels.
Tom marks time until lynx-eyed
Bobbi Bradley strides the stage—
six foot two, fabgams sheathed
in black net, he wears a red sequined teddy
like original skin.
From the western bar, fugitive boy-queens
return bunny bouncing down
the alley. Hobbled by leather
mini-skirts of random hue, they flee
after playing chicken; the macho-hetero’s
in a fury of post-fellatio discovery
hot on their heels.
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***
Each Partial Sum in a Limit is Finite
The murmur of oxygen flows
through a nasal canula to disrupt the hushed
negative pressure of Isolation.
The body barely tents the sheet
while lines penetrate veins
so stripped of fat they lie beneath
the skin like drinking straws.
His arm muscles reveal the ligaments’ insertions
with the clarity of Gray's Anatomy.
The clavicle, architectural, a buttress in flight, reaches
over emptiness like a bat wing. Mustard eyes
the color of the shit in the bedside bag,
gleam with the mischief of pomegranate seeds.
It is Bobbi Bradley.
Tom wears a cocktail length surgical gown
as he roots in rolling veins for blood.
The mask leaves his eyes exposed
while latex gloves shield his hands
against contact. A sudden hollowness begins,
the hook and suck of absence.
The swift dip and skim
of cheek-to-cheek kisses over drinks
and the elaborate family tree of shared lovers
accosts him. Slipping
from his gown, he removes the mask,
but keeps the gloves.
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***
Using a disposable razor to keep warts
from spreading to clear parts of his face, Tom sees
the mirror catch the palm’s blades unsheathed
in sun, the convex scar replacing part
of his right breast, his heron-thin legs, and a belly
that overhangs his button-fly boxer’s band.
He starts smoking again in secret. The sky
assaults him with clarity. He hears time drip.
Then wakes and takes fourteen pills to enter
the first part of his night. He rushes from clinic
to floor in a hospital laid out like a maze, searches
for Ray. A phone rings. Another excuse.
Delay suffocates the numbered minutes.
The Wife swims butterfly, in laps. Tom
caresses Ray’s panic, fingers it,
turns it over and over like a coin.
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***
Rationals and Irrationals Make Up the Real
Tom lies on the couch considering his indoor
geography. Thin rivers of oxygen in plastic
tubes traverse the floor. The metallic whisper
of the stair chair is not like wind in poolside
palms. A chill scissors through his chest. He takes
a handful of aspirin then leaves for Mary's Hamburger
Heaven where, beyond caution, he eats a salad
not rinsed in chlorine. His portable oxygen canister
dangling like a chic shoulder bag, he wades
the evasive eyes sliding between tables balanced
on the backs of horses and winged lions discarded
from a retired carousel. He tells Dan
as they leave, I haven't lost it. They still look.
But he meets avid hands only in dreams.
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Published: January 14, 2008