June 20, 2022

Audio

ANTIBIOTICS

By Raymond Luczak

View full text below.


ANTIBIOTICS

By Raymond Luczak

May you suffer night sweats of passion.

May you swoon in the fevers of bliss.

May you endure coughs of moans and exclamations.

May you max the thermometer’s mercurial moods.

May you infect others with your laughter.

May you stomach-pump out the bitter pills of jealousy.

May you seek the drip-drip morphine of ordinariness.

May you hallucinate from fits of contentedness.

May you pine for the aches of absence.

May you sigh deeply from such sweet viruses.

May you never recover.


A headshot of Raymond Luczak

Raymond Luczak is the author and editor of 29 books, including once upon a twin: poems and QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology. New titles appearing in 2022 include Lunafly: Poems (Gnashing Teeth), A Quiet Foghorn: More Notes from a Deaf Gay Life (Gallaudet University Press), Chlorophyll: Poems (Modern History Press), and Widower, 48, Seeks Husband: A Novel (Rattling Good Yarns). His work has appeared in Poetry, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. An inaugural Zoeglossia Fellow, he lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Image description: In a blue-tinted B&W photograph, a middle-aged bearded man wearing a dark shirt and tie leans to the side and smiles at the camera as a light glows on him from above and outside of the shot. Behind him is a dark curtain.

Back to Poem of the Week