Art and Politics in the 1980s // Akron Art Museum
north of the city’s heart, I wander
the art museum’s chest with you.
it’s a Tuesday, the building nearly empty,
and there is a visiting exhibit on AIDS.
it takes me by surprise, around the corner,
all my strength undone by withered bodies and protest signs.
there is nothing to say, just your hand to reach for,
as the videos play on loop for a silent gallery.
sometimes I wonder what it could have meant to know one of these men,
to know them full-bodied and foolish – unaware of any virus.
would they have taught me how to live?
would they grant me the wisdom of a queer elder –
the ever-vital knowledge of survival? the ever-elusive promise of our joy?
could they have told me what belonging would feel like when I needed it most?
told me that one day I would feel it in heavy in my gut,
light in my chest, in my very bones and radiant through my fingers
as I danced in a crowded club – just as they had.
maybe, but there is
no way to know.
what’s done is done.
what’s lost is lost.
sometimes, I want to feel fractured,
as if I’ve earned the shattering.
four highway lanes, all empty,
off a cloverleaf interchange.
an IV plunged deep, medicine’s expressway to the veins,
carrying saline and antibiotics and never enough time.
sometimes, I want to bleed for my city, weep for my elders,
but I see them as separate wards, separate bodies –
more often, we are one and the same.
some of us came home from the coasts to die,
some of us never made it back.
some of us never left, lied and did everything right,
and our bodies failed us anyways.
I am always relearning the nature of crossroads,
reminding myself to consider it all.
on the screen, a dying man in a nursing home I know
says his name for the camera.
in this quiet white, it is the only sound
I can hear.
Connor Beeman is an emerging writer and recent graduate of Ohio University. Originally from Akron, Ohio, his work focuses on themes of queerness, history, and post-industrial space. Connor is the 2022 winner of the Mark Ritzenhein Emerging Poet Award, and his chapbook "concrete, rust, marrow" is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Previous publications include New Reader Magazine, Black Fox Literary Magazine, and The Oakland Arts Review.