"Poets on Bathroom Walls" by Agha Shahid Ali.

Poets on Bathroom Walls by Agha Shahid Ali.

Sipping our Miller Lites, you announce you must take a break. So you're off, dear girl, to those remote regions where women do sitting what I do standing. You came back, having memorized someone's graffiti: "It's evident to all the world that I'm alone. My lips are still glistening at the end of the day." And the answer someone's scrawled in red: "Spies have sanctioned evidence of your sorrow. I've never met you despite all the world." Having returned with nothing from the Men's Room, I tell you I want those two women to meet. I want them to meet, despite all the world.