White Ash

Carl Sandburg

THERE is a woman on Michigan Boulevard keeps a parrot and goldfish and two white mice.   
 
She used to keep a houseful of girls in kimonos and three pushbuttons on the front door.   
 
Now she is alone with a parrot and goldfish and two white mice … but these are some of her thoughts:   
 
The love of a soldier on furlough or a sailor on shore leave burns with a bonfire red and saffron.   
 
The love of an emigrant workman whose wife is a thousand miles away burns with a blue smoke.        
 
The love of a young man whose sweetheart married an older man for money burns with a sputtering uncertain flame.   
 
And there is a love … one in a thousand … burns clean and is gone leaving a white ash.…   
 
And this is a thought she never explains to the parrot and goldfish and two white mice.