Steven Minchin’s most recent poem to appear here was Someone Screamed Country [a special report] (May 2015).

Incompatibility & Antibiotics Above the Equator
By Steven Minchin

You were the first boy I knew
to die of chlamydia
and run away to Brazil

You were right when you left

And I was left wondering
if you’d come back
to Albany, or the clinic

Come back to your senses
or just pass on again