SUBWAY
22
The dark: brain's rumor of eternity
lost, and the hope, and the heaven, and the way.
Regard this man in the chill of the subway train:
he sees the bridge and the water like sweet wine;
cold faces across him, brothers, too much bowed
by rules to speak, to breathe. Only the collar said:
"Dignity must be kept as clean, as white, as stiff
Gentility still lingers on his cuff;
where protest drowned, a frightened look appears;
the bosses drove him hungry from their lairs.
Against the wall, he broods the abyss, the fall
to nothingness-so give him bread, the will
like palsy; yet no trembling hand extends
for pennies dropping irom unwilling hands.
And live anJ live, o subway man, like this?
what question stirs behind that ashy face?
anyway, anyhow live ...
Who is that man so frigid at your side?
the neck was slit with a tempered razor-blade;
the black woman sang "tomorrow the sun will shine"
in a cracked voice and "singing in the rain";
the veteran, blind, led by a faithful dog
is grateful for the license-he may beg;
the chewing gum is Wrigley's, and the cash
went sliding down Park Avenue in the crash.
The subway eyes unmoved stare straight ahead;
pros.perity 'round the corner, but he lied.
Cold river-end, the washing tides, the train
emerges, leaps the anguished span.
And these men, flesh and blood like him, endure
same hunger, cold, same butchery in war;
dimly he knows, these are his comrades; there are
behind these stolid suits, hearts aware.
RoBERT HALPERIN
