Subway poem

What if the subway announcer could hear herself
calling through the old speaker like one chicken

in a fiery barn full of choking chickens?
Would she say, Oh no, oh no,
what a waste?
Would she say, I am a diarist then,
of stops and service changes?
Or would she say, How like any human calls
mine are. A woman pushes a stroller,
and the sound is like crackling fire as its wheels
unstick grit from the ground.
Crackle-ta-crackle crack!

Bed-Stuy poems

Little black bird
Picking at a chicken bone
He plucked from a puddle

Hands at your sides
Eyes on the pavement
Smile at your neighbor

Up the stairs
At Myrtle-Willoughby
Are those pants chafing?

Drips from the ceiling
Rats getting brazen
Where is the G train?