Chicago Poems/Cumulatives

by Carl Sandburg

 

CUMULATIVES

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.