Rae Armantrout

American

I remember your peeling billboards

fondly. Your non-sequiturs standing

on stilts above square miles

of desert scrub. ”Get Cash Now”—

whenever that was.

But now you’ve gone too far.

You were always a braggart,

but now you’ve found an icon

someone full of himself

the way a black hole is—

still ravenous,

eviscerating histories,

jumping from meme-to-meme—

a pope with one fist raised

like Mohammad Ali

and his face pasted on:

deep-fake thought,

running on fumes

with a crypto death-wish.

You are here.