"My son comes to see me every week," said the old woman

Ahead of me in the crowd, to an old woman taller,

Fiercer, more of a ragged hawk, but still shapeless.

The hawk said, "My husband don't get any better."

The old woman ahead said, "Charlie, my other boy,

He's out of work some time now, he lives with me."

She said, "George, that's my oldest, he took a vacation.

He isn't married. He makes good money. He's a good boy."

It was a slow crowd, getting nowhere. The hawk said,

My husband sleeps all the time. I tell him, get out,

Get interested, read the papers. He isn't the same

Ever since last winter he hurt his back at work."

We were all moving slowly down a long dark tunnel

From a train from somewhere to the ferry landing

To somewhere else, bundles and faces shuffling on.

son got a week off, it's more than a month now,

He ain't back, I ain't heard, they don't know at his office,"

Said the old woman ahead of me who was getting in my way,

And the old woman who was getting in my way with her said,

My husband don't eat much. I tell him brace up and eat.

He says he don't want to eat." And then the other,

Short, stout, neat, with old black feathers on an old black hat,

Shifted her heavy shopping bag to the other hip

As we all moved ahead a little toward whatever it was, and

Said, "Charlie's wife, she won't even make clothes for the baby.

They're with me now. She's having her third next month,"

And she said, "George, that's the other one, he's a good boy.

He's a good boy. I don't know why he don't write to me."