Subway Platform

I enter the subway holding the tokens
close to my heart. The vessel comes

bearing Milagros of light.
Silent statues weaving rosaries, beatitudes

of blood vessels, nun chucks, tin-hammered
throwing stars.

To go down is to heave one’s heart at the wire,
at the advertisements, see it hang

in the camp lights glistening
while the thugs watch toothless from the walls.  

Witness this brother, I died from the hiss
of closing doors, the brush of wings.

How can I say it? How can I not say it?
I love you ladies of the mists,

you frog croakers and wood knockers,
knuckles, car hoots from traffic, by and by.