The poem “on the subway,” provides a historical point of view of the 1950’s through 1980’s. The author included literary devices that help understand the poem a little better such as: symbolism, motif, and theme. The theme of the poem can be described as poverty and the fear to abuse power. The poem begins with the speaker stating her fear that the youth across from her attempted to rob her given he “has the casual look of a mugger,” she dressed in a fur coat and that seems really expensive so she obviously felt threatened. The author used symbolism to give us double meanings on clothing throughout the story, in order to represent the skin color of the characters such as: “black cotton,” “I am wearing black fur.” the author really