by David Plumb
Maggots in his eyes someone said?
Dead five days.
Coroner asks who saw him last
Lights on all night for how long?
Threw up blood someone said.
Had the HIV, quit his job or lost it.
Drunk most of the time but a nice guy.
Lived up there alone With IT.
Nobody should, but they do
don’t they, live alone with AIDS.
You just think it goes away
that everybody gets the message?
Bang it’s back and he’s what?
Fifty-three? Died alone
with two cats he yelled at.
Voices he’d been hearing for years
amid drinks and echoes
of whispers and blue.
Maggots in his eyes?
David Plumb’s latest fiction book is A Slight Change in the Weather. He has worked as a paramedic, a cab driver, a, cook and tour guide. A long time San Francisco writer, he now lives in South Florida . Will Rogers said, “Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.” Plumb says, “It depends on the parrot.”
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