A summer evening in a New York subway station feels oppressive and almost sickening. The speaker describes heat, noise, and crowds as if they are alive and hostile: dirt “collapses,” lights are “taut and dull,” subway cars are “soiled caskets” full of “apathetic bales of people.” The mood is claustrophobic and disgusted, with flashes of exhaustion and barely contained violence. At the center are two figures—a worn young woman leaning against an iron girder and a stooped old man beside her. Both seem beaten down by poverty and heat; her delicate black hat “does not understand her head,” as if her appearance no longer fits her life. The last line says they are “pieced together by an old complaint,” suggesting they share not intimacy but a long familiar weariness. The poem creates a gritty, unromantic picture of urban fatigue.
Summer Evening: New York Subway Station — Summary
Perspiring violence derides The pathetic collapse of dirt. An effervescence of noises Depends upon cement for its madness. Electric light is taut and dull, Like a nauseated suspense. This kind of heat is the recollection Of an orgy in a swamp. Soiled caskets joined together Slide to rasping stand-stills. People savagely tamper With each other's bodies, Scampering in and out of doorways. Weighted with apathetic bales of people The soiled caskets rattle on. The scene consists of mosaics Jerkily pieced together and blown apart. A symbol of billowing torment, This sturdy girl leans against an iron girder. Weariness has loosened her face With its shining cruelty. Round and poverty-stricken Her face renounces life. Her white cotton waist is a wet skin on her breast: Her black hat, crisp and delicate, Does not understand her head. An old man stoops beside her, Sweat and wrinkles erupting Upon the blunt remnants of his face. A little black pot of a hat Corrupts his grey-haired head.
Two figures on a subway-platform, Pieced together by an old complaint.