This appeared in Staple.
A place where each room glows by lamp at night
as buildings grumble back into the ground,
groomed, but no longer supple, as they gray,
where docents sprinkle sets of books with dust,
and privilege is lectured on by experts
in bespoke suits and coats of arms, where rubes
like me can listen from the vestibule,
absorbing facts and accents, but not charm,
contempt both for themselves and others, not
a hope of Heaven, but twelve names for grace:
this is a college comfy with itself.
Punts in the current, gals who've been to dances
with one's new roommate's brother, not with one,
they go together like the sound of cash
and knowledge of vocatives. I can be turned,
bought and subverted, for a vowel sound.
Treachery leads me to the place where we
must pay to be shown over the great hall,
the gallery, the messes. Up above,
in bedrooms, something else is taking place.
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