As an AIDS volunteer,
I visit Mary
in the cramped
trailer park with
its single moms,
junkies, and two
chained pit bulls.
A sour milk smell
on her breath,
she leads me to her
tiny kitchen where
she has put out
Sprite and cookies
on chipped plates
with paper napkins
folded into triangles.
Mary leans in,
hand reaching across,
which I take as she tells me
about her boyfriend,
the one whose needles
she shares, how
when they make love,
he cries in her arms
when she comes.
Biting into her cookie
she says, it’s all
worth it.
is a retired psychotherapist in her seventies. This next juicy chapter of her life is devoted to writing poetry, short fiction, and memoir. Her first book of poetry, Encounters: Inspiration from the Natural World, was published by Wheatmark in 2016.
