ECONOMY Poem: Securitization, by Ricardo Nazario y Colón

how we took down the economy in the first decade of the century

We bit into the century
like strawberries in June—

each one a bond,
dressed in sugared red—

sacks of pulp
with seeds of risk.

We said:
*slice it,*
*package it,*
*rate it triple-A.*

Call it fruit
when it’s barely jam.

The men in suits
didn’t build anything.

They conjured glass towers
from bundled lies,

paper pyramids
stacked in fog.

They sold dreams
disguised as data—

and the data—
*doctored—danced.*

Greed grew a mouth
too big to chew.

It gorged—
it gasped—
it gnashed.

What began as hunger
turned to *frenzy*:

hedge fund sharks
in Armani,

mortgages flung like glitter
onto the backs
of the barely solvent.

Oh, the credit agencies—
*sacred oracles*—

told us the storm
was sunshine.

We taxed their names
with hearings,
with headlines—

but no stars were stripped.
No shrines dismantled.

And the economy—
that brittle
*glass god*—

shattered on impact
when the music
stopped.

They called it
*correction.*

We called it
*collapse.*

And somewhere,
the last ripe strawberry
was picked clean

by someone
who bet against
the harvest—

and won