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They Buy With an Eye to Looks

by Carl Sandburg, 1920

The fine cloth of your love might be a fabric of Egypt,
 Something Sinbad, the sailor, took away from robbers,
 Something a traveler with plenty of money might pick up
 And bring home and stick on the walls and say:
 “There’s a little thing made a hit with me
 When I was in Cairo—I think I must see Cairo again some day.”
 So there are cornice manufacturers, chewing gum kings,
 Young Napoleons who corner eggs or corner cheese,
 Phenoms looking for more worlds to corner,
 And still other phenoms who lard themselves in
 And make a killing in steel, copper, permanganese,
 And they say to random friends in for a call:
   “Have you had a look at my wife? Here she is.
 Haven’t I got her dolled up for fair?”
 O-ee! the fine cloth of your love might be a fabric of Egypt.

Published in Smoke and Steel
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