Professional Middle-class Couple, 1927

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.