New York Moment

Sitting on the N train

Riding for Coney Island

First visit of the season

A young Hispanic man and I

Me sitting

Him standing and holding a pole

Watch an old woman with a walker

Get up from her seat, carefully steadying herself against the train’s motion as she gets ready to leave.

We meet each other’s eyes

Then look back at her

Respecting her old New York strength

But each of us ready to lunge and catch if the train’s relentless stop-and-start defeats her

As it has the young and surefooted

The train stops.  She plants her walker and gets off.

He gets off too.  Not with her.  He isn’t her nephew or grandson.  They don’t know each other.

I go back to reading my book.

Our eyes don’t meet again.  We don’t speak.

Three people who never met.

A New York Moment you won’t see on the news.

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