A Dying Man's Anxiety

They come in, individuals to a group, to write about themselves. They are different - and the same; men with their own stories, men with a terminal illness. AIDS. Their stories are their truths.

This is New York City's Gay Men's Health Crisis in action. Professor Rachel Hadas organized a poetry workshop for its members, and published an anthology of their work soon after: Unending Dialogue. Wayne, one of its voices, spoke of "the anger and sadness of the man / there in the mirror."

Poetry is emotion cordoned behind words. What literary form is more expressive? The emotions of a terminally ill man seem to be found mostly in the work of terminally ill (HIV-infected), gay men. Perhaps, society keeps the terminally ill, straight man locked behind the strength and independence of macho-masculinity... a cage the gay man broke merely with his presence.