Professional Middle-class Couple, 1927 by August Sander



What justifies the inequality



That issues her a tastefully square-cut



Ruby for her finger, him a suit



Whose rumpled, unemphatic dignity



Declares a life of working sitting down,



While someone in a sweatshop has to squint



And palsy sewing, and a continent



Sheds blood to pry the gemstone from the ground,



Could not be justice. Nothing but the use



To which they put prosperity can speak



In their defense: the faces money makes,



They demonstrate, don’t have to be obtuse,



Entitled, vapid, arrogantly strong;



Only among the burghers do you find



A glance so frank, engaging, and refined,



So tentative, so conscious of its wrong.

