Poet on the Subway, Christmas Eve

On Christmas eve, on my way home from picking up medicine I needed, I had the good fortune of giving traveling directions to a very fine poet named Matt Siegel. In return, he gave me a book of his poems. So, here's a stab at a poem about the meeting. Bear with me as I am supremely rusty. Here goes:

Poet on the Subway, Christmas Eve


Brown and white sneakers, narrow like an Abyssinian or a Siamese
The look of “I used to be afraid in high school”
But the cell phone gets service far beneath ground and his conversation begins with “HEY!” or something meant to sound very, very, well….
Very.
The face is excited, about the bridge, about the conductor
“This is the N EXPRESS train. The next stop is Pacific Street. Pacific Street.”
I make some snide remark about the conductor being motivated by overtime, but he is still at the movies, there is still popcorn and he has with him the proof, the five star stock.
The book of poems, so tightly carved and beautiful, full of felt and specific life and the details of honesty that he knows not to be afraid of anything even the strange lady who has not combed her hair in days. He doesn’t think of that because he has the comfort, the courage to listen which comes from having not been exactly from here. (He’s visiting from Houston. He was from here, some part of NY, but not Brooklyn.)
This is why Karen liked to fly so much and to travel.
The distance and what it does for language is impeccable.
Better than any sex can be. A private tryst. That’s what it feels like.
The cats know this, which why they only settle in for a time.
He is writing, always.
Which is why he can look away and then looks at the stranger and listens, already deciding to hand her a book as he leaves. He doesn’t see the mess – but the mix of me in the subway which is where I am and what I am talking about.
Naming train stops as if they were countries and telling him when he must get off.
We are on the “Express Track”. He needs the “Local Track”. What does any of that mean? And yet I say it and believe it because it is true right now and he rushes off and hands the book to me. “This is for you.”
He may be back, but for the moment he WAS HERE.