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His latest accomplishments are so apparent;
Most look past as if transparent:
A man
Who risked with drug use
Knows horror stories of medical abuse.
A woman
In need of a blood transfusion
With him she will learn of her conclusion.
The child
Banned from school this day
Pleads and begs him to go away.
The mother-to-be
Filled with fear
Whose lover is infected and lies so near.
All are his and bear his mark
With lesions of the body that hide in the dark.
Eyes filled with hopes and tears
They await the verdict with unspoken fears.
We pity them, but cringe when near.
Of their existence we need not hear.
Some seek help, others unreported.
Some with pasts, most decent and unsordid.
Society has become so confused
With what is the killer and who are the abused.
He has never belonged to any minority,
So do not hear what say the "majority".
He has touched us all in one way or another;
Put fear in our hearts or taken a lover.
He knows no discrimination,
Yet only process of elimination.
He does not need a work reference
And cares not of sexual preference.
His business is lives and trading them in.
He knows no religion nor of the word sin.
He knows not of creed nor black or white
And cares not with whom you sleep tonight.
Take heed to this one last thing
No more hymns shall we sing.
For now you have reached the end of this,
Unlike man, no disease has prejudice.
A. Northrup
March 1986
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