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89 The AIDSWard, U.S.C. Medical Center -for Alex Londres (1950-1988) Though no one speaks of hope here, it’s like the wax on the antiseptic floors: built up, layer by layer, only to be scuffed down again by the slippered feet of despair. The man in the room next to yours has a torso covered in tattoos: a snarling wolverine, a sinking ship, a mermaid floating over his biceps. As he thins, they crowd together in a fleshy circus, a bruised riot. Everyone’s distracted. It’s clear we all hate hospitals, detest the pretense of order, abhor the charts and schedules, the urgent, joyless footsteps of nurses. But here you are, dearest friend, surrounded by your fears and ours— your mother elegant and fidgeting, your sister radiant, nervous as a bride, me, destitute but smiling. We sit closely around you as if gathered at a campfire, to hear your ribald stories of ineptitude, while day drifts lazily toward darkness. Your doctor comes and goes, a little general with his badges and neat moustache, another technician in this Great War. 90 And now I feel that I am dying, too, that this very minute I’m falling away from this fluorescent world, from our words that keep breath going, from you, whom I’ve loved as my brother and lover, my soul’s correspondent. Only your terror holds me to my chair, and your courage—as the night’s sirens tether our lengthening silences. ...

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