White Ash by Carl Sandburg
THERE is a woman on Michigan Boulevard keeps a parrot and goldfish and two white mice. She used to keep a houseful of girls in kimonos and three pushbuttons on the front door. Now she is alone with a parrot and goldfish and two white mice … but these are some of her thoughts: The love of a soldier on furlough or a sailor on shore leave burns with a bonfire red and saffron. The love of an emigrant workman whose wife is a thousand miles away burns with a blue smoke. The love of a young man whose sweetheart married an older man for money burns with a sputtering uncertain flame. And there is a love … one in a thousand … burns clean and is gone leaving a white ash.… And this is a thought she never explains to the parrot and goldfish and two white mice.
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