Rikki Rogers
Virus
He has it too, so there’s no need to use protection. We pass it back and forth: a kola nut, a peace pipe – the welcoming. When I touch his body, we touch many other bodies. Drawing Y’s inside our wrists, scribbling uppercase behind eyelids. I can’t write it, serif-snagged. We press our fingertips together, try to erase our signature, curl up in the grooves of only-us. But it lives outside of us: tethered skip-it counting kisses. The equation of chiasmus, I can’t take it; I can’t bring it back to you.
Rikki Rogers has recently completed her MFA at the University of Utah, but is originally from Virginia. This poem is part of a project entitled “Sex Ed,” which explores how our sex education as young people affects our gender identities as adults.
