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Old Woman

by Carl Sandburg, 1916

The owl-car clatters along, dogged by the echo
 From building and battered paving-stone.
 The headlight scoffs at the mist,
 And fixes its yellow rays in the cold slow rain;
 Against a pane I press my forehead
 And drowsily look on the walls and sidewalks.

 The headlight finds the way
 And life is gone from the wet and the welter—
 Only an old woman, bloated, disheveled and bleared.
 Far-wandered waif of other days,
 Huddles for sleep in a doorway,
 Homeless.

Published in Chicago Poems
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