| Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Smoke and Steel. 1922. |
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| III. Broken-Face Gargoyles |
| 13. Mask |
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| TO have your face left overnight | |
| Flung on a board by a crazy sculptor; | |
| To have your face drop off a board | |
| And fall to pieces on a floor | |
| Lost among lumps all finger-marked | 5 |
| —How now? | |
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| To be calm and level, placed high, | |
| Looking among perfect women bathing | |
| And among bareheaded long-armed men, | |
| Corner dreams of a crazy sculptor, | 10 |
| And then to fall, drop clean off the board, | |
| Four o’clock in the morning and not a dog | |
| Nor a policeman anywhere— | |
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| Hoo hoo! | |
| had it been my laughing face | 15 |
| maybe I would laugh with you, | |
| but my lover’s face, the face I give | |
| women and the moon and the sea! | |
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