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Tuesday, August 04, 2020

RED DOMINION, THE TRANSITION: RATED R

by Alejandro Escudé


Illustrated | Mark Wilson/Getty Images, Lebrecht Music & Arts/Alamy Stock Photo via The Week


T***p stands at the top of the White House steps
holding an assault rifle: “Say hello to my little friend!”
he screams as the army rushes to arrest him, explosions
everywhere; in the Oval Office desk, dozens of encrypted
Russian messages, a diagram of an experimental aircraft
inside his seven iron, and the button, beneath the bust
of Taft, he pushed to open a passage to a bullet tram
leading directly to Moscow, on the way blasting by
Satan himself, his wild angel wings, demons wearing
MAGA caps raise their claws as he speeds through,
the tram, shaped like the cockpit of a 747, painted black
with T***P in red on its side; the final station is made
of gold, supporters and strippers greet him in Moscow;
police whisk him up a marble staircase to a glass elevator
and into a luxury hotel room near Red Square where
he’s met by a few KGB officials awaiting his last report
which T***p recites in precise Russian as he removes
the prosthetic face he has worn for decades, unveiling
a remarkable resemblance to Lenin; he runs a hand
over his bald head, the window open, sound of traffic
outside. Trump holds up a rumpled wig and smiles.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.