Doctor Doctor! I cut my palm. You told me that I should do something to turn the tide of my history, so I took the only way I know how.

My head line forks at the end like a serpant's tounge that bodes for an imminent madness. I didn't know which stem I should erase and which I should keep for luck,

so I took a chance and cut out one on the left. Why are you measuring my pusle and tapping my balls, when I am telling you it's all in these plams, whom we would hold and whom we would let go.

Doctor Doctor am I not right in cutting the left and keeping the right?

I

Admitted to the hospital again. The second bout of pneumocystis back In January almost killed him; then, He'd sworn to us he'd die at home. He baked Us cookies, which the student wouldn't eat, Before he left--the kitchen on 5A Is small, but serviceable and neat. He told me stories: Richard Gere was gay And sleeping with a friend of his, and AIDS Was an elaborate conspiracy Effected by the government. He stayed Four months. He lost his sight to CMV.

  II

One day, I drew his blood, and while I did He laughed, and said I was his girlfriend now, His blood-brother. "Vampire-slut," he cried, "You'll make me live forever!" Wrinkled brows Were all I managed in reply. I know I'm drowning in his blood, his purple blood. I filled my seven tubes; the warmth was slow To leave them, pressed inside my palm. I'm sad Because he doesn't see my face. Because I can't identify with him. I hate The fact that he's my age, and that across My skin he's there, my blood-brother, my mate.

  III

He said I was too nice, and after all If Jodie Foster was a lesbian, Then doctors could be queer. Residual Guilts tingled down my spine. "OK, I'm done," I said as I withdrew the needle from His back, and pressed. The CSF was clear; I never answered him. That spot was framed In sterile, paper drapes. He was so near Death, telling him seemed pointless. Then, he died. Unrecognizable to anyone But me, he left my needles deep inside His joking heart. An autopsy was done.

  IV

I'd read to him at night. His horoscope, The New York Times, The Advocate; Some lines by Richard Howard gave us hope. A quiet hospital is infinite, The polished, ice-white floors, the darkened halls That lead to almost anywhere, to death Or ghostly, lighted Coke machines. I call To him one night, at home, asleep. His breath, I dreamed, had filled my lungs--his lips, my lips Had touched. I felt as though I'd touched a shrine. Not disrespectfully, but in some lapse Of concentration. In a mirror shines

The distant moon.

A stunning poem. I think I had seen Campo's name as I was running out of a bookstore and since at that time I had an intense apathy to his profession, I didn't pick up to glance through that book of poems. And this makes up for that.

Here is an article Dr Campo wrote about using poetry as a healing device in mainstream medicine, an old truth I long knew.

If you want my apartment, sleep in it but let's have a clear understanding: the books are still free agents.

If the rocking chair's arms surround you they can also let you go, they can shape the air like a body.

I don't want your rent, I want a radiance of attention like the candle's flame when we eat,

I mean a kind of awe attending the spaces between us--- Not a roof but a field of stars.

Am putting this poem in the Big Book because it reminded me of a time when my attention wasn't like "the candle's flame when we eat"