dots-menu
×

Home  »  Smoke and Steel  »  5. Dancer

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Smoke and Steel. 1922.

VIII. Circles of Doors

5. Dancer

THE LADY in red, she in the chile con carne red,

Brilliant as the shine of a pepper crimson in the summer sun,

She behind a false-face, the much sought-after dancer, the most sought-after dancer of all in this masquerade,

The lady in red sox and red hat, ankles of willow, crimson arrow amidst the Spanish clashes of music,

I sit in a corner

watching her dance first with one man

and then another.