My Apocalypse

poetry

A woman writes to ask
how far along I am
with my apocalypse.

What will you give me
if I tell?

An origami fish
made from a dollar bill.

After the apocalypse,
we will all be in a band.

We will understand each other
perfectly.

“It’s alright” and

“It doesn’t matter.”

Let “it” stand
for nothing.

A weathered, fleshy bicyclist
wearing bunny ears
and a tie-dyed shirt
says “Zoom”
as she coasts past

Rae Armantrout has published fifteen books, including Conjure, Wobble (a finalist for the National Book Award), Partly: New and Selected Poems, 2001–2015, and Versed (winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award). She is the current judge of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. A new collection, Finalists, is forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press in March 2022. Armantrout is a professor emerita at the University of California, San Diego.