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The Noon Hour

by Carl Sandburg, 1916

She sits in the dust at the walls
   And makes cigars,
 Bending at the bench
 With fingers wage-anxious,
 Changing her sweat for the day’s pay.

 Now the noon hour has come,
 And she leans with her bare arms
 On the window-sill over the river,
 Leans and feels at her throat
 Cool-moving things out of the free open ways:

 At her throat and eyes and nostrils
 The touch and the blowing cool
 Of great free ways beyond the walls.

Published in Chicago Poems
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