Villanelle

“As for the gentlemen, thin men were costumed as deposits, fat ones as withdrawals.”
-The New York Times, March 7, 2009

A man dressed as bankruptcy, a woman dressed as a billion.
I am dressed as the depression, counting pills in the kitchen.
I count sticks in the flood and am nearing a million.

We are disastrous mathematics, haunting the trillions.
I am dressed as a bubble, glass-jawed and drooling.
A man dressed as bankruptcy, a woman dressed as a billion.

Who are these men with dull ties in glass towers?
Who are the men shining their cars in tight zeroes?
I count sticks in the flood and am nearing a million.

I drink a pink pill from water cupped in my two palms.
I am dressed as depression. Who are these men?
A man dressed as bankruptcy, a woman dressed as a billion.

The soprano breaks a wine glass and I am dressed as that high C.
I am dressed as a man washing his gray suit in the river.
I count sticks in the flood and am nearing a million.

We are disastrous mathematics. We are the inchoate billions.
I am dressed as a man, I am counting pills in the kitchen.
A man dressed as bankruptcy, a woman dressed as a billion.
I count sticks in the flood and am nearing a million.