Two Poems by Katie Armstrong

Donald John Trump

I expected this Samson
bombast. His boast a
balloon, a hot warren riddle,
and a big bag of duck down—
and that’s not to mention how he’ll
pillow in the rubble.

But who was it said
out of the strong, something
sweet?

I do know you said it was for me,
notwithstanding endangered bees.

Imagine, for a moment,
the taste of my ballot,
candied and crushed
on a stone. Then the bromide,
in a cube, on the lips
of the mules on the mill.

In dreams I’ve seen what
waits for me: the
largesse of a pale ocean,
the bigamy of nations
and notions.
It’s true I suckled on
a founding—I did what
you told me to do.

But I won’t have this
wedding. I’ll pass beneath
the music from the nearer room.
Honey, what happens
to a nightmare deferred—
or, when his foxes are loosed,
do you even wanna
know?

In the morning I’ll march the strata,
my arm in a sling, unbruised,
white as a lily.

The cloy of the sun
on the rocks—
this I will take. This
is my chyron. This
is all I need to know.

My Übermensch Is Here

A picture of
my girl worship—
you still summer
smooth here,
standing fast
before the red
map,
an enormous
language,
whispering to me
in a death lather
please woman
through the busted
sheet rock,
ripping satin
thousands
like the tiny pink men
never could
in all their minted
lusts.

Katie Armstrong is an engineering student at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She tweets into the cold void at @ArmstrongKatie. Her work has appeared online in Hobart and is forthcoming in Journal Twenty Twenty.

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