Working in the summering senior partner’s office

on Pennsylvania Avenue

reminds me of the inferior debts of kitsch,

those sand-storm debts of Timbuktu

and the pickled herring jar where we matured that wish.
You don’t pay for saunas in DC in July,

or coffee if you’re a guest

I am reminded of the gratitude I must try

to show the founders, their parents

my parents, the schools, police, all in terms of why
Wherever he is, the summering senior partner,

there’s hills more sand than grass

judging by his photos he pays for saunas there

then dresses cheaply for his class,

while fish swim past his fishy-food he tramples beche-de-mer
will he know I was in this cell, working while he summered?

It’s true he slaves harder at

the desk than half of congress, not a single word

escapes him, unlike the judge of brats,

or the man who laid his pen down to get hammered.
Back at the summering senior partner’s office

on Pennsylvania Avenue

thinking on these inferior debts of artifice.

The random thefts I owe to you

the man who owns this office so I can have all this.