Subway Sirens

Queens of the T

By: Charles Giuliano - Oct 17, 2015

Subway Sirens

Underground
The T in Boston
Symphony stop
Ancient and grimy
Waiting on a bench
Staring at stained walls
Looking back
Ann Taylor diptych
Paired images
Same girl
Pretty but generic
Like the clothes
For working girls
Who actually work
As well as play
In these outfits
The eyes radiate
On the left hauteur
The other panel
Brooding vulnerability
The gaze coached
Twenty-somethings
With attitude
For the camera
Not much behind
The ersatz angst
While getting paid
Quite well in fact
To sell stuff
Before the
Nips and tucks
Put them
Out of business
Followed by the next
Fine boned girl
From Kansas
While it lasts
Billboard queens
Seducing commuters

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Reader Comments

"I like this, another of the aging writer's tempos fugit, carpe diem poems, and think it has immediate appeal, but a weak ending."

Posted By: Stephen Rifkin on 10-17-2015, 04:15 pm
"Evocative piece Charles. You should see the London Underground system walls and the tales they would tell if only the silenced voices would emerge. They sunk their first tunnel during the first year of our Civil War (1861). The Blitz during WW II alone would be a revelation. I spent many cold hours starring and thinking on the way home to Wimbledon during the three years I lived in dear 'Old Blighty'. The piece whisked me back 60 years to a London that no longer exists as I remember it. Ah!, that's life eh?"

Posted By: Jack Lyons on 10-17-2015, 01:28 pm