Prime Brokerage Poem by Salvatore Ala

Billionaires on their trophy yachts
sip Grand Cru and pick delicacies
from Flora Danica plates
and Baccarat glassware.
The seas are their escape
at freedom's own expense.

Asleep, waves accumulate a price
too expensive for their assets.
The rolling sea erases time
like Wall Street's ill-gotten gains.
How far away we are from them—
our feet on a public pier,
their decks beyond the buoy line.
Their anchor lights
glint in illiquid distances.

And in our gazing, unseen shapes
stir from the depths,
sea-monsters of discontent
rising from envy we barely know.

Wealth means nothing
to the waves and their changes.
They carry their own interest,
whisper listing to the caves.
At the bottom of the sea
lies the Graff of their extravagance.