New York Subway

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.