Poem by Carl Sandburg

Paula

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.

1. Old-fashioned Requited Love
2. Subway
3. Baby Vamps
4. Kin
5. Hope Is a Tattered Flag

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