In each car's vestibules
 Rods with three handles 
 Like egg-beater blades
 Rise from floor to ceiling
  
 To be quickly utilized;
 Entering a crowded Métro train,
 You hold on 
 Or may stumble and fall.
  
 When a person with cheeks
 Rosy as a Renoir or slightly
 Open mouth like a Fragonard appears,
 I try, adjusting my hips and shoulders 
  
 Against lurches, to mimic Parisians
 Who never directly look long at another.
 Yet young French men and women
 Traveling together are apt 
  
 When erect on the car
 To softly converse, peering deeply
 Into each other's eyes. Occasionally
 Some of them almost perceptibly kiss –
  
 As though the jolting of the train
 Forced them to each other's arms.
 Torso against torso, each finds
 Mouths meet.  
  
 I think of that fish,
 The kissing gourami.  
 I yearn to do it myself.
 I am angry, being partnerless,
  
 Until in the vicinity I see a single matron
 And an older gentleman watching,
 By the disapproving set of whose lips
 I know I am not alone.