New York Subway
by Hilda Morley
The beauty of people in the subway
that evening, Saturday, holding the door for whoever
was slower or
left behind (even with
all that Saturday-night
excitement) & the high-school boys from Queens, boasting,
joking together
proudly in their expectations
& power, young frolicsome
bulls,
& the three office-girls
each strangely beautiful, the Indian
with dark skin & the girl with her haircut
very short and fringed, like Joan
at the stake, the corners
of her mouth laughing
& the black girl delicate
as a doe, dark-brown in pale-brown clothes
& the tall woman in a long caftan, the other day,
serene & serious & the Puerto Rican
holding the door for more than 3 minutes for
the feeble, crippled, hunched little man who
could not raise his head,
whose hand I held, to
help him into the subway-car—
so we were
joined in helping him & someone,
seeing us, gives up his seat, learning
from us what we had learned from each other.
Hilda Morley, “New York Subway” from To Hold My Hand: Selected Poems 1955-1983. © 1983 Hilda Morley published by The Sheep Meadow Press.
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