Carl Sandburg

Cumulatives

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.
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