I Can’t Breathe

I suppose I should place them under separate files
Both died from different circumstances kind of, one from HIV AIDS
         and possibly not
having
taken his medicines
the other from COVID-19 coupled with
complications from an underlying HIV status
In each case their deaths may have been preventable if one had
         taken his meds and the
hospital thought to treat the other
instead of sending him home saying, He wasn’t sick enough
he died a few days later
They were both mountains of men
dark black beautiful gay men
both more than six feet tall fierce and way ahead of their time
One’s drag persona was Wonder Woman and the other started
         a black fashion magazine
He also liked poetry
They both knew each other from the same club scene we all grew up in
When I was working the door at a club one frequented
He would always say to me haven’t they figured out you’re a star yet
And years ago bartending with the other when I complained
         about certain people and
treatment he said sounds like it’s time for you to clean house
Both I know were proud of me the poet star stayed true to my roots
I guess what stands out to me is that they both were
gay black mountains of men
Cut down
Felled too early
And it makes me think the biggest and blackest are almost
         always more vulnerable
My white friend speculates why the doctors sent one home
If he had enough antibodies
Didn't they know his HIV status
She approaches it rationally
removed from race as if there were any rationale for sending him home
Still she credits the doctors for thinking it through
But I speculate they saw a big black man before them
Maybe they couldn’t imagine him weak
Maybe because of his size color class they imagined him strong
said he’s okay
Which happened to me so many times
Once when I’d been hospitalized at the same time as a white girl
she had pig-tails
we had the same thing but I saw how tenderly they treated her
Or knowing so many times in the medical system I would never have been
         treated so
terribly if I
had had a man with me
Or if I were white and entitled enough to sue
Both deaths could have been prevented both were almost first to fall in this
         season of
death
But it reminds me of what I said after Eric Garner a large black man was
         strangled to
death over
some cigarettes
Six cops took him down
His famous lines were I can’t breathe
so if we are always the threat
To whom or where do we turn for protection?

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“I wrote this poem in late March or early April 2020, after I lost two distant but dear friends to AIDS and COVID. I knew both of them from the New York night club days when we were all younger. They were both beautiful black gay men and I was grieving. Also, the question I always ask is, if we are the threat as big black people, where do we turn for protection?”
—Pamela Sneed

Black Lives Matter Anthology

“This is a love colored with iron and lace.
This is a love initialed Black Genius.”

—“This Is Not a Small Voice” by Sonia Sanchez