Cohen, Susan

English

The Open Repository @Binghamton (The ORB)

REPORTORIALBYSUSAN 00HENTHE MILTON KESSLER MEMORIALPRIZE FOR POETRYCohen 261Cohen: ReportorialPublished by The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB), 2014I met them young and frightened.It was San Francisco in the ’80s.In the Castro, the last bitter Irish barheld out against their gayness,and boys who had surviveda father’s belt, boots to the ribs,bottles smashed against their skulls,showed a different kind of bruising,smacked purple by a cancerthat spoiled their handsome faces.Some seemed baffledby the microbes in their brains.I came to them as a reporter,and they’d offer up their storieswith a cup of coffee I would sipto show them their saliva did notscare me. I remember one-his army jacket hung on a framethat had carried twice the weight.Now he was a hanger for his coatWe talked in a Cafeteria, and thenhe stood and hugged me too hardfor a stranger. He was a tall manin his twenties who needed met0 know he was not a ghost yet, andclung as if I were the raft to save him.Or as if. . ‚and I’m still sorry, sorryI imagined, face pressed againstrough cloth and the sharpnessof his shoulder, he almost hoped .to give me his disease. A reasonto remember how he felt.272Harpur Palate: a Literary Journal, Vol. 13, Iss. 2 [2014], Art. 9https://orb.binghamton.edu/harpurpalate/vol13/iss2/9

Reportorial

https://orb.binghamton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2000&context=harpurpalate

Reportorial

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