© Anthony Baverstock

Author's note: As talismans like this were believed to prevent and cure disease, I thought this form would be an appropriate one in which to construct a kind of acrostic-cum-pattern poem about human ingenuity and endeavour in the current fight against HIV-AIDS. 

Online gamers crack AIDS enzyme puzzle
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Anthony Baverstock is from Colchester, reputed home of Humpty-Dumpty.

What will become of the broken-hearted?
What can we do to repair
Pumps that have been restarted
By medics, sworn to spare?

Fear of failure comes at a price,
It's damage limitation.
Hope rests with disenfranchised mice,
And defibrillation.

© Martin Hodges

Drug makes hearts repair themselves
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Martin is a writer, and former columnist. He has twice been editor of Viewpoint (a forum for INDEPENDENT internal comment within the University of Southampton), and is co-founder of Poetry24.
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Editor's note: When I first read this story, I thought, great! Then I started thinking about the mice, and that IS fatal.