stolen glances, old town

I am the nigger. / Singer of songs, / Dancer… / Softer than fluff of cotton… / Harder than dark earth / Roads beaten in the sun / By the bare feet of slaves… / Foam of teeth … breaking crash of laughter… / Red love of the blood of woman, / White love of the tumbling pickaninnies... / Lazy love of the banjo thrum… / Sweated and driven for the harvest-wage, / Loud laugher with hands like hams, / Fists toughened on the handles, / Smiling the slumber dreams of old jungles, / Crazy as the sun and dew and dripping, heaving life of the jungle, / Brooding and muttering with memories of shackles: / I am the nigger. / Look at me. / I am the nigger.
Nigger. Carl Sandburg, Chicago Poems, 1916.

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