Marjorie Moorhead
April Locket
—For Jorge Soto Sanchez
Heart shaped, in my birthday month,
I keep the image of you.
April, so full of hope
for sun, and buds, and blossom.
I don’t know the month we met. It was warm.
Summer time. An art exhibit space.
We shared our lives together at young love’s
accelerated pace. You left before the disease had a name
that was spoken aloud. Only whispered with fear and shame.
No cure; not even viable treatment back then.
Amazingly, I stayed alive. Watched others drown in that wake
of different fate. Survival/or not, a question worn daily, and handled
like prayer beads, draped around searching fingers.
Looking back into my locket at you,
sadness lingers. Here’s April again; another birthday to mark.
I’ve a few grey hairs, everything and nothing to fear.
Grateful for blessings, I shed
a heart-shaped tear.
Marjorie Moorhead is the author of the chapbook, Survival, Trees, Tides, Song (Finishing Line Press, 2019) Her poems have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies. She writes from the NH/VT border.
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Here is today’s prompt
(optional as always)
Write a poem in couplets (two-line stanzas) on any HIV/AIDS-related topic.