Dave Bonta's short poem is a cold look at how some people respond to catastrophe. In the first stanza, the speaker imagines a "reckoning" and calmly notes that they expect to "profit off it." There's no panic or grief, only a quiet, almost businesslike calculation. The title, "Disaster capitalism," tells us exactly what kind of thinking we're hearing.
The second stanza widens the view. The plague keeps spreading, yet the speaker compares "we" to a parliament "not much concerned," a body of people too comfortable or too distracted to act. The final phrase, "we laugh to sleep," is unsettling because it sounds so easy. Laughter here isn't joy; it feels like a way of avoiding the problem.
The mood is darkly ironic and numb. The speaker doesn't seem proud or ashamed, just detached, and that detachment is what makes the poem sting. It suggests that complacency and opportunism can sit side by side, even while things get worse.