NOBLES

The dead generally choose 

To get their passports and such

In Bruges, since being deceased is there

Considered an honorable career

Conferring privileges (their letters

Are carried, for instance, at lower rates

And only once in a while thrown in the mud

By surly Flemish postmen.) Still,

The occasional dead man or woman

Would turn up when I worked

At our office in Ghent seeking

Consular services though we were not,

Strictly, a consulate. A few of our cats

Were skilled forgers with few scruples

And we had a sideline in selling

False patents of nobility to shadows

Which had no one to cast them. Even now

I sometimes pass a Prinz von Thurn undt Taxis

Or see a grey-haired Margravine of Karlsruhe

Nervously pretending not to know me.