She stood alertly, groomed. Her livery shone.
The valet parking manager approved.
His excellence at Davos was well known
among the other servitors. They moved,

the manager and maid, among the rich
and parked their cars and planes. She curtsied well
and he was proud she did. No single hitch
could hinder either one of them. The swell

and affable world leaders, and their owners,
tipped both of them enough to live a year.
It riled her how the rich behaved as donors
and she, donee, was to them just veneer

on a scene they graced with presence while they planned
how to keep their world another year in hand.

=====================================

It’s our world too, she thought. Her staring frown
made the manager chastise her softly: ‘Smile.’
He could not afford to have her coming down
so he slipped her more white powder. ‘Walk a mile

in their shoes,’ he implored her. ‘Rich is good.
The people who assemble here control
the world to make it function as it should.
Without them, there’d be wars, and heads would roll.

There’d be refugees, and pestilence, and despair.’
She looked up and saw him clearly. Made her cry.
‘You keep telling me plutocracy is fair,
because it works. It don’t, although you try

to excuse the people who’re exploiting you,’
she said, and shot him twice. There’s little new.