One of the first documented direct actions for AIDS activism was against the New York Post and its columnist Ray Kerrison, who wrote of the afflicted, “Now the bitter harvest is upon us.”
You in that shiny brown suit yeah you rag
along with your wall words
this rag bombs down raining
rags torn fisted rags
cotton rag old sheet rag bundled
rag to stuff in your ragwort mouth
down that ragweed throat a whipped rag
a twisted cracked thrown Rag-
gedy Ann. Andy. You
rag muffin you old rag
raggin on us in your ragtime
geezer raggedy suit? Here—
take the dust, the restaurant oil,
the school board floor soil, the chalkdust
take all we’ve wiped I hear
you can get it from sweat
Jon Bonanni serves as founding editor for the Cape Cod Poetry Review. His poems have appeared in Gulf Coast, Foglifter, Cincinnati Review, North American Review, Seattle Review, Cream City Review, Washington Square Review, and Prairie Schooner, and his book reviews have appeared in DIAGRAM, Rain Taxi, Tupelo Quarterly, and Kenyon Review. More at www.johnbonanni.com.