I remember once I ran after you and tagged the fluttering
     shirt of you in the wind.
Once many days ago I drank a glassful of something and
     the picture of you shivered and slid on top of the
     stuff.
And again it was nobody else but you I heard in the
     singing voice of a careless humming woman.
One night when I sat with chums telling stories at a
     bonfire flickering red embers, in a language its own
     talking to a spread of white stars:
               It was you that slunk laughing
               in the clumsy staggering shadows.
Broken answers of remembrance let me know you are
     alive with a peering phantom face behind a doorway
     somewhere in the city's push and fury
Or under a pack of moss and leaves waiting in silence
     under a twist of oaken arms ready as ever to run
     away again when I tag the fluttering shirt of you.

Poet: Carl Sandburg
Poem: 6. Shirt
Volume: Chicago Poems
- Fogs and Fires
Year: Published/Written in 1916
Poem of the Day: Dec 30 2008

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