A sonnet as January ends: "if you have to ask"

if you have to ask


From middleville I view another way
to live, in contrast to my own travail;
there is profligacy indeed, but they
do not appear to ever fight or flail
against their unrelenting freedom to
enjoy such fortunate emplacement; time
for such as these is diff'rent than for you
or I; we must exist within our grime
while they do shine and preen and demonstrate
what privilege creates, the chance to bite
the upper crust, and also procreate
new royalty, legitimate by right
or not -- their altitude allows their claim
to take the mixed advantages of fame.