The Inhuman Underground

In “The Man-Moth.” Elizabeth Bishop paints the subway as an inhuman space. In the first stanza, she speaks of Man, observing the “vast properties” of a female moon. There is a somewhat sexual and unquestionably human relationship between the Man and the moon.
The Man-Moth sees the moon in a different light. He is inhuman, a creature of the underground. His masculinity, his fearful longing for rebirth, and his tear all exhibit some inkling of humanness, but his subterranean dwelling is characterized as inherently inhuman. His home is a “pale [subway] of cement,” a place of “artificial tunnels” and the unnaturally abrupt start and stop of trains.
In contrast to the facades, bathed in moonlight, his home is inorganic; it is poisonous to the point that he must keep his hands in his pockets lest his glimmer of humanity seep from them, just as “others must wear mufflers” to keep the cold from stealing their human warmth.
But there is something of the subway that is human: the Man-Moth gives forth a tear from his black eye, his sole effect of humanity. He is selfish if “you’re not paying attention,” and will swallow it again, but if “you watch, he’ll hand it over.” The tear is not unnatural or poisonous, but “cool as from underground springs and pure enough to drink.” This tear is not like the strange moonlight or the hard cement, but liquid, and only attainable “if you catch him,” if someone is in the subway. Bishop seems to tell us that it is people that give the subway its human character.