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Cumulatives

by Carl Sandburg, 1916

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.

Published in Chicago Poems
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