4. Home Fires. II. People Who Must. Sandburg, Carl. 1920. Smoke and Steel

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

II. People Who Must

4. Home Fires

IN a Yiddish eating place on Rivington Street … faces … coffee spots … children kicking at the night stars with bare toes from bare buttocks.
They know it is September on Rivington when the red tomaytoes cram the pushcarts,
Here the children snozzle at milk bottles, children who have never seen a cow.
Here the stranger wonders how so many people remember where they keep home fires.