Ms. Subways 2008

Shock against the black: a jiggling florid
flowing lurid glow – her wig – a shot! – you blink:
hot pink: shimmeringly hurled at, and regaling,
sight: a girl so bright and curved and sleek
and winning on West Twenty-Third Street’s
Downtown Number One train platform –
assonantly swelling fat and thinning warm she

sways to rhythms only she can hear: inward
essence given form – made just expressibly
cantabile – a gentle swear – some faintly drunken
Caribbean spinning, sinning song – so warm
and live and dark – so dark – black skin derived
from blooming longings on a moonless
midnight – parked in jeans so tight she might

have been the dream of some bewildered
fashionista Venus yearning out of nowhere
for a Neptune: vacant and voluptuously slight –
shadow-fairy with seductive might: you knew
she flew and oh, you knew that she could
dive into the deepest sea and if you followed her,
you’d cease to be, you would go down, you’d

drown. I’d offer her the crown, but she
too patently would find it superfluity. A spot-lit
whirligig of girl: she’s now a bare unfurling glare:
the twirl, the unapologetic shove this city will
exert if you would dare to love it. Neon-pink-lit
rippling blackest ink: come and lick it, drink it,
write with it and sink with it and think it.


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