July 10, 2012 | 9:12 pm

Begging To Give

Posted by Emily Stern

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The mother and the baby are coming through
asking for some money.

He said, “I sleep in the subway.”

It feels good to give. Don’t you feel it bubbling up?
I feel it bursting through.

I took him out to pizza and he started to sell umbrellas.
“Sorry” he says, “if it’s embarrassing.”
Yes, it was when I’m the one to bring you here, but I loved him, “You got to try” I said.

“MY DEAR FRIEND, we will be begging to give each other gifts,” I say, “someday very soon—you’ll see.”
The sign, ‘I’m hungry’
before it can open my heart, it is delivered.

“They don’t even see me” he said.

“It’s a gift that I can see you this way so I can give.  Oh, I sense it,” I said, “that very soon, I will be the beggar—begging to give to the blind.”

We walked like good friends on top of the world.

we sing the rhythms of the city together.

He said, “sleep one night in the subway. Just one night. Just see.”

The rhythm of the traffic. I hear the women with their strollers, I know he speaks in tongues.

He says,

“the subway workers let me use their showers when they’re not using them.  The people who don’t have showers sometimes give me their clothes to wash them. ”

“there’s something to put on the resume,” i say.

How lucky I am that you would take me home, give me a first class tour,
Someday, the whole world will be, or maybe we already are,
begging to give one another gifts.

He says,
“the song you sing’s about love.”

“Yes, it’s a blessing from a long time ago.” I thought he’d follow me all night.

“I’ve gotta go,” he says “I have umbrellas to sell—got ‘em wholesale from the vender on the street.”

“someday very soon
we will be begging to give each other gifts,” I say.