Not Reading Neruda on the Subway

I like to read on the subway.  I don’t have the longest commute, most days, but I do read pretty swiftly, so I can get at least a few pages in.  There are some books I don’t read on the subway anymore.  Can’t read anything that’s going to be so engrossing that I miss my stop (which has only happened once or twice!).

I also need to be careful of poetry.   Reading The Captain’s Verses, by Pablo Neruda is a bad pick for the subway.  My Spanish has lapsed to the point where I can get a few words, but I rely heavily on the translation.

A sampling:

“I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.”  from “I Crave Your Mouth, Your Voice, Your Hair”

So, after reading a few poems, I could tell I was blushing, and sheepishly stuffed the book into my bag.

“Neruda, he is a very romantic poet, yes?” came an accented voice- an older gentleman sitting across from me.

“Err… yes!  Too intense to read on the subway.”  I was a little wary.  Mostly, people don’t say anything to their fellow commuters.  To have the silence broken with such an intimate comment was jarring.

“I remember, in Spain, my home country, when his poems were first published.  There was a great scandal.  His poems were more— than anyone had done before, more than anyone had seen.  Very intense, very sexual for their time.  He was a rebel.  I was young, but I still remember.”

I don’t remember the rest of the brief conversation, truncated by his subway stop or mine.  I’m approximating the conversation now- I wish I’d written it down the day it happened.  Every time I open a book of Neruda’s poems, I remember that conversation.  Neruda is far, far too steamy for the subway.  But I’m glad I tried to read it, just once, and got a glimpse into another culture and time.