For poems apologized for

I have had the grace to be in the right place at the right time. Or maybe, if I reflect back on it, and on poems apologized for in the Nation, I might have to say that I was really just in the right place and the right time for me. I wrote this memory before I read the poem, but it does occur to me… Who knows what it is or how it feels or for how long it feels to be the one with the hand out in a subway station?

I was living in NYC. It was in the 90s when homelessness was everywhere on the street. (The city wasn’t as rich then.) I had gone into the subway station and was about to go down the stairs to catch the 1 2 3  train. And there, next to the staircase was a tall skinny homeless guy standing with a sign and a container for change. Just standing there. Maybe he said something as people went by or maybe he didn’t. I don’t remember.

It wasn’t like me to do what I did, then. But, I stopped. I pulled out some bills and went over to him. Instead of putting the money in his cup, I grabbed his hands with both of mine, pressed the money into them and and looked him in the eye and just said, “Don’t give up on yourself.”  I had no idea why I said it. I had no intent or thought when I did.  What did I know about what he thought or what he held onto, or what he gave up?

As soon as I said it, I turned around and left.  In part, I didn’t want to invade his privacy or require anything of him or impose myself upon him.  I didn’t want him to feel like he owed me a response,  and I also didn’t want to know more.  It was his response that made it something I would remember. As I was going down the stairs, I heard him cry out…“I won’t. I won’t.” It was a heartbreaking, piteous cry… a promise made by drowning man who had just grabbed onto something and my heart felt pain and joy.  It was a gift to think that I actually might have helped someone have a little more strength for being that day.  Maybe it’s just about who I think I am, but I think about the him as I remember him and hope that he, whoever he was to himself, gathered strength get to the next landing.

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