Ode to a Brokerage

“If you have to sell your home for less, that doesn’t mean you are going to lose money.”
    — Tom Kunz, CEO, Century21, Business Week, Aug. 16, 2007

Your little party’s over. Best of luck.
Of course, the competition isn’t faring
any better. Burgdorff is despairing
as the Coldwell Banker mutters, “…fuck.

Remember nothing lasts forever, friend.
Just ask the families you muscled out
of Maplewood. A lot of good your scout
in Brooklyn Heights will do you in the end.

Balloons of blue and pearly white will pop,
as will your sunny yellow bags of gas.
It’s economics 101. A game
of circles, shattered latex in the grass,
and chasing your own ass until you drop,
a fin de siècle bursting into flame.

Rick Mullin is a business journalist and painter whose poetry has appeared in print and online journals including Umbrella Journal, Measure, Light Quarterly and The Shit Creek Review. His Chapbook, Aquinas Flinched, is available from Modern Metrics.