Chicago Poems/Style

by Carl Sandburg

 

STYLE

Style—go ahead talking about style.
You can tell where a man gets his style just
as you can tell where Pavlowa got her legs
or Ty Cobb his batting eye.

Go on talking.
Only don't take my style away.
It's my face.
Maybe no good
but anyway, my face.
I talk with it, I sing with it, I see, taste and feel with it,
I know why I want to keep it.

Kill my style
and you break Pavlowa's legs,
and you blind Ty Cobb's batting eye.