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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Carl Sandburg

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Chicago Poet

Carl Sandburg

From “My People”

I SALUTED a nobody.

I saw him in a looking-glass.

He smiled—so did I.

He crumpled the skin on his forehead,

frowning—so did I.

Everything I did he did.

I said, “Hello, I know you.”

And I was a liar to say so.

Ah, this looking-glass man!

Liar, fool, dreamer, play-actor,

Soldier, dusty drinker of dust—

Ah! he will go with me

Down the dark stairway

When nobody else is looking,

When everybody else is gone.

He locks his elbow in mine.

I lose all—but not him.