CAVEATS WITH ZEROS

Balance sheets and coverage ratios.

Accretion schedules.

A prospectus.

These were the needed things.

To assess the risk.

To anticipate the anecdote

before the ending.

To know who the lender was,

the borrower be,

and when along the graph

they’d trade places.

What was needed

was more prudence

and fewer caveats with zeros.

And a promissory note

stating the venture

would not be a callable affair.

That the investment

would reach full maturity

and secure the return,

the reaping hoped for,

which had always been

part of the inspiration

to speculate, in the first place.