➤ READINGS, from p.12
though maybe not in the same way.”
Poet Essex Hemphill, famed for his
exploration and celebration of Black
gay sexuality, was remembered
by Jay W. Walker, who read “Vital
Signs,” the last published writing of
Hemphill’s, who died in 1995.
Describing the after-dark scene
along the Schuylkill River near
the Philadelphia Museum of Art,
Hemphill wrote, “A fl ock of queens/
gather on the corner./ A line of
cars/ snake around the block./ The
bejeweled/ exotic birds/ preening/
and trilling/ on the corner/ are in
danger./ Even those/ with talons.”
Later in the poem, referring to a
man with a lover, Hemphill wrote,
“You are lucky./ You are not like/ so
many of our generation/ hungering
for love,/ begging to be worked./ I
offer you/ the only leverage/ I possess:/
a strong/ stern tool./ Take
it!/ Use it/ for anything/ but raping,/
anything/ but killing.”
Borrowing the title of an iconic
song from French chanteuse Edith
Piaf, David Frechette, who died in
1991, dismissed the notion that his
HIV infection caused him to regret
Kineen MaFa reads Mary Bowman’s “I Know What HIV Looks Like.”
his sexuality.
In “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien,”
read by John Grauwiler, Frechette
wrote of “minions… “brandishing
crosses, clutching Bibles” as they
“circle round my sick room” imploring
him to “renounce your sins.”
“‘Don’t you wish you’d chosen a
normal lifestyle?’/ ‘Sister, for me,
I’m sure I did,’” Frechette wrote.
The poem continued, “I don’t
regret late night and early a.m./
Encounters with world-class insatiables./
My only regrets are being
DONNA ACETO
ill/ Bed-ridden and having no boyfriend/
To pray over me. / Engrave
on my tombstone:/ ‘Here sleeps a
happy Black faggot/ Who lived to
love and died/ With no guilt.’”
Several of the writers honored on
Wednesday evening spoke movingly
about love itself, even when burdened
with insurmountable grief.
In “Us,” the poet Tory Dent, who
died in 2005, wrote, “in your arms/
it was incredibly often/ enough to
be/ in your arms/ careful as we had
to be at times/ about the I.V. catheter/
in my hand,/ or my wrist,/ or
my forearm/ which we placed, consciously,/
like a Gamboni vase,/
the center of attention…”
Read by curator Murphy, the
poem ended, “you don’t need reasons
to live/ one reason, blinking in
the fog,/ organically sweet in muddy
dark/ incredibly often enough/
it is, it was/ in your arms.”
In “No Goodbyes,” writer and
poet Paul Monette, who died in
1995, wrote achingly of his fi nal
hours with lover Roger Horwitz.
The poem, read by Ed Barron,
began, “for hours at the end I kissed
your temple stroked/ your hair and
sniffed it it smelled so clean we’d/
washed it Saturday night when the
fever broke/ as if there was always
the perfect thing to do…”
At 4 a.m. on Horwitz’s last day,
he “took the turn” and Monette
cried, “WAIT WAIT I AM THE SENTRY
HERE,” and then concluded,
“my darling one last graze in the
meadow/ of you and please let
your fi nal dream be/ a man not
quite your size losing the whole/
world but still here combing combing/
singing your secret names till
the night’s gone.”
ASK YOUR DOCTOR
TO TEST YOUR CHILD
FOR LEAD
Lead in peeling paint
poisons children.
• Tell your landlord to fix peeling paint. It’s the law.
• Wash floors, windowsills, hands, and toys often.
GET YOUR CHILD TESTED AT AGES 1 AND 2.
CALL 311 TO LEARN MORE OR VISIT NYC.GOV/LEADFREE.
GayCityNews.com | December 16 - December 29, 2021 13
/LEADFREE
/GayCityNews.com
