The Butcher, The Burgher, The Revolutionary

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.

Adam Kirsch has three strange, beautiful little poems in the April issue of Poetry, paired with the vintage photographs which inspired them.