Page:The Collected Poems of Hart Crane.djvu/55

Preparing penguin flexions of the arms,—
As usual you will meet the scuttle yawn:
The subway yawns the quickest promise home.

Be minimum, then, to swim the hiving swarms
Out of the Square, the Circle burning bright—
Avoid the glass doors gyring at your right,
Where boxed alone a second, eyes take fright
—Quite unprepared rush naked back to light:
And down beside the turnstile press the coin
Into the slot. The gongs already rattle.
               
            And so
            of cities you bespeak
            subways, rivered under streets
            and rivers. . . . In the car
            the overtone of motion
            underground, the monotone
            of motion is the sound
            of other faces, also underground—

“Let’s have a pencil Jimmy—living now
at Floral Park
Flatbush—on the fourth of July—
like a pigeon’s muddy dream—potatoes
to dig in the field—travlin the town—too—
night after night—the Culver line—the
girls all shaping up—it used to be—”

Our tongues recant like beaten weather vanes.
This answer lives like verdigris, like hair