Meat Locker The subway car is cold,
my clothes are wet
from having walked in spritzy rain a few hours before,
the air, conditioned by tyrant machinery
to rub your arms seductively til
peach-innocent hairs stand erect
the orange of the seats is misleading,
for they are frigid to the touch,
throat feels like spray C02
although there is no fire
head is a balloon
coaxed by ringing thermometers and ringing ears to expand,
and float
until it hits the the ventilating ceiling of
this meat locker.
Some 30 fine specimens
of meat
on this train,
and were I a cannibal
I’d eat them every one.

The train crashes,
bounces up off the tracks,
rummages side to side
try to find its place
and I swear it’s about to
smash the underground walls,
crumple the steel exoskeleton
like tin foil,
squish all us sitters like bugs
snap youthful M & M vendors in half,
but I will be saved,
because I am so crumpled in my seat,
knees in my chest as I scribble,
all the compactly severed bodies that surround me,
well if I were a cannibal,
I’d eat them every one.