We Are All Just Clinging On

I saw two humans last night, lovers.  The women seemed to be cradling the man as they lounged together in such a tender embrace, the care like an aura around them.  But it was more than love, it was deep care of fortification.  We were all alone, my lover and me and them.  Such love.  

They were lying in the deepest hole in Manhattan where the platforms narrow to support all those above, barely wide enough to allow my lover and me to pass.  They were filthy, wrapped in all manner of cloth lying on the floor supported by a tattered bag.  They were young but ancient in poverty and filth.  The girl was actually cradling the man as he looked at his filthy hands, hands that seem to have let him down.  He raised his head and looked past me.  I am thinking about them today.  How they clung to each other—and left me clinging to “these three remain, faith hope and love and the greatest of these is love.”