The Virus

The very first words of the poem imply that the virus in question is HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), which has been “dubbed undetectable” (Line 1) in both medical and popular parlance when its presence in the patient’s blood has been so successfully suppressed by medications that it cannot be detected by the available blood tests. HIV patients in whom the virus is undetectable cannot infect others through sexual activity or other normal physical contact, which is why the virus says, “I can’t kill / The people you touch” (Lines 1-2). In that state, the virus is also no longer capable of causing serious conditions that it could otherwise trigger, including those that jeopardize the patient’s eyesight, potentially causing blindness. Hence, the virus acknowledges, “I can’t / Blur your view” (Lines 2-3).

However, though its power has been diminished, the virus maintains its impulse to damage and destroy. Since its victim enjoys “the pansies … planted / Outside the window” (Lines 4-5), the virus yearns to ruin that object of pleasure: “I want them dying, and I want / To do the killing” (Lines 7-8). The poem endows the virus with a malignant will. It is not simply a series of molecules that happen to harm the human body but a self-consciously destructive force. The virus says “I want” four times in the span of three lines—most times what it “wants” is to kill. Representing the virus as a self-aware entity with deliberate evil motivation might reflect the victim’s obsession with the disease. Confronting a condition that can maim and obliterate them, many patients perceive it as a vicious enemy purposefully endangering their lives, rather than a random biological process which neither intends nor understands its destructive effect on the human body.

Since the weakened virus cannot cause serious physical impairment, it is bent on bringing about psychological damage instead. Its purpose is to make it impossible for its victim to forget or ignore its presence: “I want you / To heed that I’m still here / Just beneath your skin and in / Each organ” (Lines 8-11). Even though you are neither ill nor contagious, the virus is telling its victim, always remember that I am inside you, looking for an opportunity to regain strength and attack you again. HIV has become a manageable chronic disease, but it remains uncurable. Thus, the potential for the resurgence of the virus is always there. The poem suggests that this awareness remains a dark shadow hanging over HIV patients and their efforts to lead happy lives.

At this point, Brown employs an analogy that opens the poem up to concerns far beyond an individual’s obsession with illness; he compares the virus lurking inside the victim’s body to “The way anger dwells in a man / Who studies the history of his nation” (Lines 12-13). The vagueness of the sentiment makes it that much more evocative. No specific historical events or phenomena are introduced, but a person who is both knowledgeable and honest about this nation and its history will have no difficulty supplying appropriate examples. The reader familiar with Brown’s work will easily deduce that he is likely referring to racial injustice (from slavery to various forms of segregation and prejudice that persist to this day). However, many other kinds of discrimination, inequality, and unfairness are equally relevant. While the poem invokes American history, there is probably no nation with a spotless history; every nation has historical periods and events that could induce anger, and these lines effectively connect the body’s vulnerability to disease with the society’s vulnerability to unjust practices. In the life of a queer black person with HIV/AIDS, it may be impossible to say what the most threatening force is: the virus, homophobia, or racism.

The last part of the virus’s message in the poem spells out its malignant purpose: “If I can’t leave you / Dead, I’ll have / You vexed” (Lines 14-16). It still has the power to disturb its victim’s peace of mind. It can provoke uncertainty. It can inflame fear. It can debilitate confidence. It can erode hope. That is precisely the effect it desires its words to have on its victim. The final lines exude spite: “Look. Look / Again: show me the color / Of your flowers now” (Lines 16-18). Referring to its initial acknowledgement that it can neither kill the flowers nor compromise the victim’s physical ability to see them, the virus believes it has diminished the victim’s mental ability to watch them with joy. The virus hopes that the color of the flowers has faded in the eyes of the infected person and thus, that the virus has successfully reasserted its lasting traumatic impact on its victim’s life.