Poet of the Month
Every month Moon Tide Press features a different poet to celebrate and bring readership to deserving, diverse voices.
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If you are interested in being featured as a Poet of the Month, or want to nominate a poet, please contact editor@moontidepress.com.
Steven Reigns
October 2025
Steven Reigns is a Los Angeles poet and educator and was appointed the first Poet Laureate of West Hollywood. Alongside over a dozen chapbooks, he has published the collections Inheritance and Your Dead Body is My Welcome Mat. Reigns holds a BA in Creative Writing from the University of South Florida, a Master of Clinical Psychology from Antioch University, and is a sixteen-time recipient of The Los Angeles County’s Department of Cultural Affairs’ Artist in Residency Grant. He edited My Life is Poetry, showcasing his students’ work from the first-ever autobiographical poetry workshop for LGBT seniors. Reigns has lectured and taught writing workshops around the country to LGBT youth and people living with HIV. Currently he is touring The Gay Rub, an exhibition of rubbings from LGBT landmarks, and is the board president of the Anaïs Nin Foundation. His collection A Quilt for David was published by City Lights and is the product of over ten years of research regarding dentist David Acer’s life. His newest collection Outliving Michael is a memorial memoir in poetry, chronicling Reigns’s profound friendship with Michael Church, who died of AIDS in 2000.
HE STARTED LOSING HIS THICK, RED HAIR
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He started losing his thick, red hair;
kept it buzzed short, had taken to
wearing baseball caps,
the free kind with embroidered logos.
His nine-year-old neighbor on the news,
she had a tumor, spent countless nights
in hospital beds, days hooked up
to soul-draining chemo.
Michel couldn’t stop talking about her,
horrified she could die so young,
the unspoken truth that he was going
to as well – still too young.
Everything he wanted to say about himself
he said about her: it was unfair, unjust,
senseless, and the slowness cruel.
One night on the way to dinner,
he saw the family pull into their driveway.
He offered neighborly support to the parents.
The girl was shy, bald, with dark-ringed eyes.
Always animated, Michael loved to make
someone laugh, so he pulled off his cap:
Looks like we go to the same barber.
She giggled, they said their goodbyes,
and Michael got into his car and cried.
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IN HIS SECOND-TO-LAST YEAR
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In his second-to-last year,
Michael had trouble getting hard.
Viagra was a miracle drug
all over the news and late-night
monologues, but his doctor said
he didn’t need it or sex
not-so-subtly hinted that Michael
was a danger to others.
I told him I’d ask around,
bought two pills from a fast-talking
drug dealer my friend Eric was dating,
who warned me about side-effects –
upset stomach, abnormal vision –
and to avoid grapefruit.
I paid $40, a stretch for me at the time,
and never asked Michael for the money.
I mailed the pills, enclosed a note:
I want you to be happy,
I want you to fuck your brains out.