You cannot gently flirt with subway women:
Their quick demeanor is as tart as lemon.
A second thought is three seconds past—
Their time is short, their stop is coming fast.
But their look is sure, their language clear:
In muscle-silence, you are there: I'm here.
(Were I a decade younger I would —no,
I never would have blinked ten years ago.)
The license to review her coiffe, her clothes,
The conoisseur's reflection on her pose
Is icy in its presence, as its chilling
Blossom bloomed from nothing melts me, thrilling
My imagination, fooling no one—
(I feel no rack of horns, but I may grow one).
Am I that handsome—you look back at me—
Or is this drama played out in the rind
Of skull I sense is numbing my behind.
Don't fill me with the possibility
That fancy comes to roost for even me?
Your eyes are exquisite, your hands seem hot,
You're grace-endowed with—everything I'm not.
You give me power, yes my strength is novel
In my soul. For you I'd leap and grovel
Ape-like, primitive and dash your enemy,
Then you would proffer up your hands and breast,
And hair, and heart, and suffer my hands pressed
Upon your cheeks and damp anenome
And I —. . . The panel slides at Union Square
She's up and gone, and I am sitting, where
Her smile is branded, burning on the brain:
I will never, never see her like again.
