Demise

The Shovel Man

The Shovel Man

On the street

Slung on the shoulder is a handle half-way across,

Tied in a big knot on the scoop of cast iron

Are the overalls faded from sun and rain in the ditches;

Spatter of dry clay sticking yellow on his left sleeve

And a flimsy shirt open at the throat,

I know him for a shovel man,

A dago working for a dollar six bits a day

And a dark-eyed woman in the old country dreams of

him for one of the world’s ready men with a pair

of fresh lips and a kiss better than all the wild

grapes that ever grew in Tuscany.

Carl Sandburg, 1916