After Hanif Abdurraqib

There’s something visually poetic

about a man sleeping under a shrine

of himself

what good will your vanity do you?

what good will your billions do you?

We worship everything from money to power.

The man in the White House

surely sleeps clutching onto his ego.

I’d like to think of him

painted above a fireplace.

Does the picture corrupt

itself with every tweet?

Maybe the orange begins

to tint itself as it rots away.

This is a dangerous assumption.

Believing that there is a soul

to be trapped away in a painting

WHAT GOOD will your vanity do you?

I laugh at all your billions.

I laugh at all your power.

The institutions created to oppress me and my ancestors will

crumble.

Ashes to ashes.

Dust to dust.

I ask again.

What good will your shrines do you

When they are nothing but piles of ashes beneath His feet?

What purpose will your vanity serve?

What can billions of ashes buy

when everything else

is but a pile of

ash.

Step down from your castle.

Tear down all your shrines.

There will be no peaceful slumber tonight.

Or stay there...

It will be much more poetic to watch

you crash down from high above.