Lawrence Hall
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                                     ­      My Bourgeois Leanings

          One day, at a meeting of the Komsomol…he was accused
          of bourgeois leanings just because he happened to wear a tie.

                          -Yevtushenko, A Precocious Autobiography,
                                    recounting an anecdote by his father

I am the only man who wears a tie
With proper coat and trousers (inspection pass)
Properly kitted like a proper guy
To weddings, funerals, dinners, and Sunday Mass

I am the only man who does not wear
Sneakers or baseball caps, gas-station shades
Knee pants, tee shirts, jeans with a built-in tear
Or plastic jackets shaped like hand grenades

If we are facing civilization’s end -
One’s trousers touch one’s oxfords with a quarter-inch bend