"In The Metro" Poem Summary

In The Metro describes how many desires, including love, can pass you by leaving you with little other than sadness. In the beginning it depicts a man who developed an infatuation towards a beautiful stranger he notices in the subway. He lusts over her physical appearance by mentioning her "shining legs" (3) but if quickly reminded that he will never meet her again because "she goes her way" (4) and he'll go a different way. From his downheartedness he makes it clear he's no sure why he/ll "never meet [her] again" (1). He compares "the escalator [carrying] her away" (7) from his view to a flower flowing down a river to the sea. The man admires the women's ability to go where she pleases while he's "crucified to family duties" (9). At the end he realizes that he is just a man, alone on the platform with nothing more more than "a shopping bag dangling from [his] hand" (12). He has seen love, in all its beauty, but almost as soon as it arrived, it disappears.