Sonnet for a Government Lawyer

By Sean Carman

My love is neither woman, man, nor child

But something more Byzantine and abstract

A hundred-headed creature full of guile

And heavy with the world’s weight on its back

That keeps its counsel in its offices

And by its rules and customs there abides

Shows its favors in the claims it presses

And in the truths from which it never shies

It made of me an advocate, in time

Gave voice to my ideals and bade them speak

It let me keep my frequent-flyer miles

And also paid me every other week

All loves confess and so I shall to thee

I loved, and was loved by, a true bureaucracy