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Home  »  Chicago Poems  »  95. Aztec

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Chicago Poems. 1916.

95. Aztec

YOU came from the Aztecs

With a copper on your fore-arms

Tawnier than a sunset

Saying good-by to an even river.

And I said, you remember,

Those fore-arms of yours

Were finer than bronzes

And you were glad.

It was tears

And a path west

and a home-going

when I asked

Why there were scars of worn gold

Where a man’s ring was fixed once

On your third finger.

And I call you

To come back

before the days are longer.