| Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Chicago Poems. 1916. |
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| 73. Buttons |
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| I HAVE been watching the war map slammed up for advertising in front of the newspaper office. | |
| Buttons—red and yellow buttons—blue and black buttons—are shoved back and forth across the map. | |
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| A laughing young man, sunny with freckles, | |
| Climbs a ladder, yells a joke to somebody in the crowd, | |
| And then fixes a yellow button one inch west | 5 |
| And follows the yellow button with a black button one inch west. | |
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| (Ten thousand men and boys twist on their bodies in a red soak along a river edge, | |
| Gasping of wounds, calling for water, some rattling death in their throats.) | |
| Who would guess what it cost to move two buttons one inch on the war map here in front of the newspaper office where the freckle-faced young man is laughing to us? | |
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