Poetry from the AIDS Epidemic, another for World AIDS Day

Excerpt of "Atlantis" by Mark DotyAbout his partner with AIDS

 6. NEW DOG

Jimi and Tony

can’t keep Dino,

their cocker spaniel;

Tony’s too sick,

the daily walks

more pressure

than pleasure,

one more obligation

that can’t be met.

And though we already

have a dog, Wally

wants to adopt,

wants something small

and golden to sleep

next to him and

lick his face.

He’s paralyzed now

from the waist down,

whatever’s ruining him

moving upward, and

we don’t know

how much longer

he’ll be able to pet

a dog. How many men

want another attachment,

just as they’re

leaving the world?

Wally sits up nights

and says, I’d like   

some lizards, a talking bird,

some fish. A little rat.

So after I drive

to Jimi and Tony’s

in the Village and they

meet me at the door and say,

We can’t go through with it,

we can’t give up our dog,

I drive to the shelter

—just to look—and there

is Beau: bounding and

practically boundless,

one brass concatenation

of tongue and tail,

unmediated energy,

too big, wild,

perfect. He not only

licks Wally’s face

but bathes every

irreplaceable inch

of his head, and though

Wally can no longer

feed himself he can lift

his hand, and bring it

to rest on the rough gilt

flanks when they are,

for a moment, still.

I have never seen a touch

so deliberate.

It isn’t about grasping;

the hand itself seems

almost blurred now,

softened, though

tentative only

because so much will

must be summoned,

such attention brought

to the work—which is all

he is now, this gesture

toward the restless splendor,

the unruly, the golden,

the animal, the new.

Mark Doty, “Atlantis” from Atlantis: Poems. Copyright © 1995 by Mark Doty.Source: Atlantis (HarperCollins Publishers Inc, 1995)