Singing Nigger by Carl Sandburg
YOUR bony head, Jazbo, O dock walloper, Those grappling hooks, those wheelbarrow handlers, The dome and the wings of you, nigger, The red roof and the door of you, I know where your songs came from. I know why God listens to your, “Walk All Over God’s Heaven.” I heard you shooting craps, “My baby’s going to have a new dress.” I heard you in the cinders, “I’m going to live anyhow until I die.” I saw five of you with a can of beer on a summer night and I listened to the five of you harmonizing six ways to sing, “Way Down Yonder in the Cornfield.” I went away asking where I come from.
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