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Home  »  Chicago Poems  »  120. Harrison Street Court

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Chicago Poems. 1916.

120. Harrison Street Court

I HEARD a woman’s lips

Speaking to a companion

Say these words:

“A woman what hustles

Never keeps nothin’

For all her hustlin’.

Somebody always gets

What she goes on the street for.

If it ain’t a pimp

It’s a bull what gets it.

I been hustlin’ now

Till I ain’t much good any more.

I got nothin’ to show for it.

Some man got it all,

Every night’s hustlin’ I ever did.”