I live with the shame you leave behind on my bed

Of late I've been wondering if this sex is making me sad.

Does it happen to you too when you sneak in quietly into my lane?

Do you feel everyone who sees you knows why you’re there? Does the lying make you hate us?

Do you wish you didn't have to do this just for an afternoon of being in my arms?

Have you ever wanted us to be naked in the same bazaars that we hurry through,

And make love with the stench of rotten vegetables washing over us?

We could tell the onlookers, “yes we are dirty but you are not to judge.”

Have you felt a slow rise of revulsion from your belly when you’re reading and

Come across a perfectly innocent phrase like, ‘between the sheets?’

Does it all come back to you like a foul guttural smell carried by the wind? One that you can’t wait to cleanse yourself of?

Is that why you’re always in a hurry to leave when we’re done instead of lying in bed and making conversation?

Is that why you wear a fragrance only when you’re leaving?

In my idle dreams, I don’t see you wrapped around me with the curtains drawn.

Instead, I am a husband debating with his wife if bhindi is a good idea for dinner.

When you visit and leave, I change the sheets, let the light in and spend an hour under the shower.

‘I could tell them all about us, I just don’t want to,’ I repeat to myself. It never works.

Do you also stop to chat to people about their kids’ grades and fuel prices,

So you could reassure yourself that you’re no different from them?

Of late I’ve found myself wishing that someone would ask me about you

So I could plead my case and win. Against myself.

Of late I’ve been wondering if everything we claimed we never would be

Is just what we should have ended up being. It’s just happier that way.