Summary

In “it began right here,” the speaker recalls the violent experience of contracting HIV. The infected blood may be a sleeping devil, but the speaker goes on learning to live and laugh again while containing both life and death.

“crown” opens with a description of pleading sex, at the end of which the lover extracts something red from the speaker. Next, the speaker watches the needle and vial as they extract the children never to be born. The speaker reflects on tangled memories of the sex, unsure if there were drugs or blood involved. Pausing before the test results, the speaker wishes to be ignorant again, before their blood became a moat, preventing a future and children. The speaker sits near playgrounds crying, knowing that to touch another is to bring destruction and paralysis, like Medusa. The speaker imagines all the possible children...