Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NIGHT IN A SUBWAY STATION, by MARY LEONARD WEST


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NIGHT IN A SUBWAY STATION, by                    
First Line: The train was late. He sat among the crowds
Last Line: He couldn't use the things.
Subject(s): Night; Railroads; Smoking; Subways; Bedtime; Railways; Trains; Tobacco; Pipes; Cigars; Cigarettes


The train was late. He sat among the crowds
Looking tired as though suddenly all his years
Gathering like a snowball, had lurched themselves against him
And bowed him with their unaccustomed weight.

He puffed at his pipe
And gave it all the interest he had left for anything.
I glanced at him sideways. His head was bent so far
He made a pitiful question-mark,
As if to ask his meager reason for being.
I wondered why, and couldn't answer myself.

Nothing
But a garnered sheaf of dead sensations,
Nothing more than a hull
Empty of grief, empty of joy.

Old man, where are your wings?
No use to ask him that.

If he had pinions for soaring thoughts
He couldn't use the things.





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