Cumulatives

  by: Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)


 

Storms have beaten on this point of land
And ships gone to wreck here
    and the passers-by remember it
    with talk on the deck at night
    as they near it.

 

Fists have beaten on the face of this old prize-fighter
And his battles have held the sporting pages
   and on the street they indicate him with their
    right fore-finger as one who once wore
    a championship belt.

 

A hundred stories have been published and a thousand rumored
About why this tall dark man has divorced two beautiful young women
And married a third who resembles the first two
    and they shake their heads and say, "There he goes,"
    when he passes by in sunny weather or in rain
    along the city streets.


   More poems by Carl Sandburg