Happening Upon

Let's workshop this bitch!

Happening Upon

I was clicking through class lectures 
recorded in secret back in grad school. 
The end of one plucked at random
caught us talking. Did I forget to click 
off the device, perhaps in my nerves
around you? Or was it, in my love,
on purpose? Through grating noises
of putting our things back in our bags
and everyone scooting their chairs
and me likely excessive in squirming,
we walked together to eat together 
a meal I fail to picture. Muffled since
the device was in my bag, you said  
(shattering my attempt at small talk), 
“The payback for sex being repressed 
is that it’s now everything. And now,
in its overexposure, we have learned—
in a sense, made—the dangerous truth
that there was never a secret to unmask
behind the hijab.” (We were so soused
in our lives—aware of, but not facing,
all the disintegration on the horizon.)
Summing up what turned out a tirade 
about your sex-fanatic lover, you said, 
“What seems to distinguish humans
is their capacity to be inhumane.” 

*This poem is unpublished

Photo by the legendary Peter Klashorst: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nude_woman_with_niqab.jpg