Ardently Love
愛滋佬
lit. 'AIDS guy'
(neologism, colloquial, derogatory) a gay man
In Wonarowicz's Untitled (Buffaloes) there are four of them.
The one already falling is the first to be noticed. Suspended
upside down in photographic time it would be easy to invoke
Bruegel's Icarus or a newborn grabbed by its legs and lifted.
Stooped on the cliff's unforgiving decline the second buffalo
accelerates against its will. Its centre of mass hurls its hull
past the limits of balance. Buffalo number three and four know
what is bound to happen. Because buffaloes are larger than us
their fear is magnified to match. Why are you sad the cliff asks
the viewer. This happens all the time so why are you sad.
The cliff does not understand the gravity of the situation.
The photo is angry at the cliff for its ignorance and sad
at the buffaloes for dying. It has embalmed its sadness
for the viewer to imagine. I examine the photo without
having seen a buffalo or known someone lost to AIDS.
I am sixteen realising why they call us what they call us.
The story needs the cliff as much as it needs the buffaloes.
Erip Yip’s Exposure is bold in its experimentations with form and filmic in its visual sweep. Yip explores queer and migrant experience with a cinematographer’s eye in ekphrastic poems that seek a language for the emotional texture of visual art forms. In some poems, cityscapes form the backdrop for self-discovery, and the figure of the mother, with her potential for distancing reproval, seems to haunt the speaker.
