TERRENCE THIS IS STUPID STUFF
You survived
the AIDS crisis
lung cancer
lived long enough
to see your plays
get produced
and gay marriage
come to your city
and country
but couldn’t refuse
this airborne
apocalyptic pollen
taking root—
BORED AS FUCK
His antics were gaining
traction: parading
his dick around
the locker room while
snapping his towel
at those who bothered
to look his way. Am I
the only one who
remembers this decades
after the fact, the way
he left his mark
on me as if I were a toy
dog the neighborhood
bully took pleasure in
pissing on only to get
away with it? Who
am I if not the non-native
speaker who’s paid to
clean up after him,
all of my days linked
together like a crew
of orange jumpsuits
picking up trash tossed
by those who can
afford vacation homes
and panic rooms
to retreat into when
the pandemic struts
its tighty-whitey ass
across our nation’s face—
MAKE AMERICA CHINA AGAIN
We fled the great
city and are sheltering
in your neighborhood—
the plague baby dropped
on your doorstep—not
that you’d leave us out
in the cold? Didn’t think
so! So much none of us
can possibly cunt-
troll and I’m getting
sick of being told exactly
where I can set up
shop, spend my money
wherever I want in this
lock down unimagined
just days before with
the season’s first daffodils
pushing up through snow—
TIMOTHY LIU (Liu Ti Mo) was born in 1965 in San Jose, California to immigrant parents from Mainland China. He is the author of ten books of poems, including Of Thee I Sing, selected by Publishers Weekly as a 2004 Book-of-the-Year; Say Goodnight, a 1998 PEN Open Book Margins Award; and Vox Angelica, which won the 1992 Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award. He has also edited Word of Mouth: An Anthology of Gay American Poetry. His latest book is Let It Ride (Saturnalia Books, 2019). Translated into ten languages, Liu’s poems have appeared in such places as Best American Poetry, Bomb, Kenyon Review, The Nation, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, The Pushcart Prize, Virginia Quarterly Review and The Yale Review. His journals and papers are archived in the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library. He is currently a Professor of English at William Paterson University in New Jersey.
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