From "Accordion Breathing and Dancing"back to menu The CityAIDS Education, Seventh GradeBath The City -- In memory of Ariel Jimenez "That was my dream. Just to walk down the street, holding hands with another man." -- Andy Saint Francis in his brown robe in the garden honors every butterfly and bird, every living thing, and in the city named for him, where gay is a spoken language, even the trim on the gingerbread houses dances with color, up and down the hills to the ocean, the very edge of the world we know. And it is not the city itself which is killing the pretty men, though because they came here from anywhere else, Mexico, Colombia, Grenada, Puerto Rico, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Nashville, desperation, all lured by the echo of open kisses, because they came here with blood and bodies unpoisoned, and will fall here, most of them, straitjacketed by IV tubes, oxygen nosepieces, stainless steel bed walls, it is hard not to think, If they had not come here, they would have survived. I am driving one of them to the hospital and still the others stride toward us, against the light, their butterfly faces, their perfect apple asses, their hands in each others' hands, while the oldies station plays Dylan knock-knock-knocking on heaven's door. We all came here from somewhere else, but because we know this city, because we chose it like a lover, winding our lives through its streets as if caressing them, we imagine the city knows us, recognizes us in its invisible heart, even as death pats its hands around the sand of our bodies as if sculpting us, and we open our mouths to the tide.