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I call our house a hive, not for the wasps
that hover along the eaves on hot days
or the honeybees darting from lilac
to apple out back, but for ourselves:
Bradley, Ben, and me, William —
three men with HIV, a housing grant,
and medicaid subsidies. The windows
of our four-bedroom building
look east into urban sprawl, west
toward a cemetery where deer drift about
in the evening, peaceable spirits.
The tallest monuments rise in the middle,
cracked granite phalluses. Around them
cluster lesser stones, plain white slabs
and sunken markers. With binoculars,
I can squint to make out carved crosses
and inscriptions, last names mostly,
never Christian names or dates.
I'm the one who's lived here
longest, the one whose wheelchair
hums down ground floor hallways
to answer the doorbell, the phone, the call
of nature. Bradley and Ben have rooms
above mine, but mostly spend days
downstairs with me. They sometimes sleep
in the fourth upstairs bedroom,
the empty one we've come to call
"Hope." Some days my friends drop
by with casseroles, might stay for a quick
round of Hearts. They ask me about Ben,
the most recent resident, and his progress
with protease cocktails. I tell them he's fine,
no signs of resistance, but they really want
to know if he sleeps in the nude, if his cock
swings right or left, if he still has unprotected sex.
Some nights our living room is crowded
with Bradley's activist friends, thick with
the pungent stink of their magic markers
and spray paint. Our tongues get all sticky
and dry with the minty adhesive
of envelopes. Loud music pulses
around us, mostly dance mixes.
"Adrenal enhancers," Ben likes
to call them. "Sonic stimulants."
I love Ben.
I love the way he slips his pills
into tapioca, winks and licks his lips
as he raises the spoon. I love the fact
that he walks around naked each morning
and practices kick-boxing while watching
the TV talk shows. I love his pierced nipple,
the thin hoop of gold his dead lover
left there. I love that he lets me
wheel him around in my lap, that we dance
that way when we're alone and feeling
all cooped up and crazy. I love seeing him
as a killer queen among drones, strong
in spite of adversity, the one sting
I'd die for.
I may be
senseless below the waist, but I believe
in the generosity of gods, in life
after death, in love despite affliction.
When I close my eyes and listen
intently, I can hear the bees upstairs
building their combs, cell by cell in the walls.
I can see Ben sleeping beside them, and send
my soul up to curl and settle like smoke
in the curve of his stomach. It spreads across
his chest, between the thin brown hairs
that cover his heart, and trembles slightly.
I believe that dreams do outlive us, do last
beyond the body. Even as my spirit lifts
above him and dissipates, some trace
will linger. It's love that keeps it there.
It's either that, or it's nothing.
