WHO HIDE THEIR EYES Poem by Mona Kareem

Gleaming in the marches bordering hell:
A single highway keeping us from Plato's city.

Here, no one wants to admit that we first fall
For the skinny men,
The men with baby bellies,
Who've yet to find out what it means
To bald.
The men
Who are soft like us.

No one is walking in the street here.
You can sleep endlessly
Without guilt.
You can drink coffee outside the homes
Of the femme ghosts:
Plumped,
Who hide their eyes,
Ignoring the presence of this world.