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Paula

by Carl Sandburg, 1920

Nothing else in this song—only your face.
 Nothing else here—only your drinking, night-gray eyes.

 The pier runs into the lake straight as a rifle barrel.
 I stand on the pier and sing how I know you mornings.
 It is not your eyes, your face, I remember.
 It is not your dancing, race-horse feet.
 It is something else I remember you for on the pier mornings.

 Your hands are sweeter than nut-brown bread when you touch me.
 Your shoulder brushes my arm—a south-west wind crosses the pier.
 I forget your hands and your shoulder and I say again:

 Nothing else in this song—only your face.
 Nothing else here—only your drinking, night-gray eyes.

Published in Smoke and Steel
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