| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | The Steam-shovel | | By Maxwell Bodenheim |
| | From “Charcoals”
THERE was an unsightly arm | |
| And a cupped hand with three crusted fingers. | |
| The hand sank into earth and bulged with it: | |
| Then swung aloft in sudden exaltation…. | |
| And the seamy, blotched man beside me said: | 5 |
| “I’ve stood here for two hours watching that steam-shovel— | |
| Can’t seem to get enough of it.” | |
| |
| I stood for hours, but I did not see the shovel. | |
| I saw the man in smirched blue | |
| Jerking a rope at the precise moment | 10 |
| When the laden hand dipped over a freight-car— | |
| His strained wet face, and his eyes pressed to specks. | |
| I saw the knotted-up man at the engine, | |
| His face dead and dented like old tin. | |
| (Life to him is the opening and closing of levers, | 15 |
| And heavy sleep.) | |
| |
| When I walked away the two men were fixed paintings | |
| In the little art-gallery of my mind, | |
| Where portraits are weighed well before admitted…. | |
| The steam-shovel?—I had forgotten it. | 20 | | | |
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