Strangers packed into the subway
   through the guts of the city
they ride thigh to thigh, eyes velcroed on
thick lamplight,    flash mobs drowning
the stop at Powell Station.

It’s not only night but the inside
   of a piston badly lit
and always leaving someone short-changed.
River of yellow between
   the platform and the train

makes everyone take sides
   and rearrange.    Girls who had wandered
off, stayed stationed on knobby-kneed pylons,
   holding their skirts to the wind
to anyone who’d take them.