Still Not Stopping, by David B. Prather

Stop AIDS, by Keith Haring (USA) 1989

 

Still No Stopping
  
Just as my body was ready
for desire, AIDS crept into daily life,
even into the hidden hinterland
 
of West Virginia. I was terrified of sex
before I knew what it was,
what it could be. I was terrified
 
of the red serpent I knew
must slither through the woods waiting for me
to be baptized in those intimate waters.
 
All those years ago, such desires.
And all these years later,
still no stopping.
 
Overwhelmed by attraction,
my blood flowed inconveniently
at the sight of women, the visions of men.
 
I didn’t know I could separate pleasure and love
and still be human. I grew up
where religion was a disease, not a path
 
to enlightenment.
It got into an open wound
and flourished in my body until I hated myself.
 
I cocooned my fear,
let it butterfly into self-destruction,
all those unprotected nights, those at-risk days.
 
Somehow, I’m still here.
But so is that viper with its needle-sharp fangs,
its venom in so many lovers’ veins.

David B. Prather
​
David B. Prather still lives a life of Sunday dinners and lawn mowing in Parkersburg, WV. He is the author of three poetry collections: We Were Birds (Main Street Rag, 2019), Shouting at an Empty House (Sheila-Na-Gig, 2023), and the forthcoming Bending Light with Bare Hands (Fernwood Press, 2024).