10
PARTISAN REVIEW
2:
THE
SUBWAY
Sleep on the way home, 6 P. M., and. each one shaken to a stifled
flat. Sleep. The ads murmur: buy me, buy me. Hands
hanging in a net of veins; the sweated collar; feet unseen;
heart sodden with a full week's overtime. Heavy, hungry.
Light scuds on the concrete. Our sleep is shaken like the
shadow of vibrating chain. Another hour toward another
hour, another hour toward
Where. We're stopped. 'Vho? Blue bulb steady in the tunnel.
Wake up, we're nowhere. Is it the end? What's up? Is
the lottery over? A girl stands staring from her nickel
sleep. Nowhere. Who is it? The bright walls still. Ask
someone. Who jumped or fell underneath the
Two cigarettes for lunch. The suitcase remained on the platform.
· Those were thC) last of the pack. Found crumpled. He
jumped here. Delay of ten minues. Won't we go on?
The split arm and the mouthful of brain. Don't look.
Don't crowd. Don't jump.
There's no room for all. Who'll ask to be first? The fouled?
the woman with the secret growth? the punchdrunk? the
disqualified? Shall we brake the trains with corpses?
We've learned in boyhood the routine of sorrow; losers
mostly; heads harsh inside with worry. Consider: if all
jumped who remember the distrust of affection, the morning
when we were laid off, the broken cup of gin, or the feverish
child in the darkness; if each who bites the internal knuckle
of misfortune,-consider 1-, shall all jump? Shall we stop
These tunnels with suicide, sour the automatic draft with blood,
neglect rails wrinkled and the cities stopped? These are
our halls; courage; we spin the world. The first majority
of mankind, only a few we dare excuse to die. Our vigor
rushes deeper than these pits.
Anew
I
Ugly, shaking with dialectic, the train plunges our metal
force.
DAVID WOLFF
