Whom We Know Can't Help Themselves - Dec 7 2025

 

Whom We Know Can’t Help Themselves 

Dec 7 2025



I slip the hood over my head.

I think of its hard black eyes

glaring fiercely out,

and the cowl over its head;

a bid of prey

on the arm of the hunter

at ease in the dark.

Think of devotion.

The Jew

who covers his head for morning prayers

the Sabbath meal,

davening

at the Wailing Wall.

And the Christian

who out of respect

doffs his hat for Sunday church.

Why one

and not the other?

Think of death row;

the black hood 

on the head of  the condemned;

before the trap door

on the gallows floor 

abruptly drops.

The firing squad,

spared 

from looking in the eye

of their veiled target.

Yet somehow, none of them complicit

when they’re all firing blanks

and no one knows who isn’t. 

Think of the devout

shrouded from head to toe

so her eyes are all that show,

made-up

with liner and lashes 

and a hint of shadow

like a middle finger salute.

But no perfumed hair

to tempt men

whom we know can’t help themselves,

no shapely legs

that might corrupt the unwary.

Defenceless women

in medieval dress,

safe

from leering boys and ogling men,

the male gaze

that strips her of agency.

Think of the masked thief

or teenaged thug.

Of the riot squad 

holding the line

in black from head to toe;

jackbooted bullies

shoulder-to-shoulder

behind plexiglass shields,

faces covered

and steel truncheons set.

The blind man,

whose tinted glasses

hide the roving eye

that repels, as well as fascinates;

wandering

like a lost child

in a sea of adult legs.

Or the one that doesn’t move,

staring out

from its sunken socket

as if fixed on only you.

But as for me

it’s the cold.

So I slip the hood over my head

and hunker down

against a biting wind,

eyes slitted

shoulders hunched,

both hands

jammed stiffly into my pants

as if that will keep them warm.

A generic young man

in the standard hoodie

we’ve all started to wear

is hard to tell.

Because not showing yourself

may or may not be suspicious,

and meaning

is what you make of it

when you see him slouching closer.

The semiotics

of covering heads.