Lines 1-4:

From the onset, the speaker is established as an observer, watching the spread of an unnamed "plague"—the AIDS epidemic. As the speaker helplessly witnesses, his friends wilt and expire. Their bodies, unable to resist the spread of the disease, "grow thin." They become foreign and altered as they succumb to the virus, vulnerable, or as the speaker puts it, "bared." This slow yet sudden expiration prompts the speaker to examine his own state. Is health something the speaker can still rely on without question? Will he be able to avoid this dissipation, in which the body grows more and more "vague"? Though his "shape" can be "sculpted," though the body can be built up and strengthened, ultimately there is no real cure for chronic diseases like AIDS.

Lines 5-8:

While steeling the body's exterior, growing tougher in the face of tragedy may seem like a...