There are an estimated
four hundred thousand
Elvis impersonators on Earth, and that’s
not all. By 2043, if the number
of Elvii grows
at the same rate as that of the 70s, we will all
be kings. I could be
him, sure; I could move
my hips yeah I could sing my blue notes
yeah yeah. There’s not much to it,
they’ll say, and isn’t that what we’ve wanted to hear
all along? When they come
they will already
be like that: Uh ha oh
baby. They will part their hands
at altars across
America, comb flat their sideburns, legions
of hound dogs, girl, girl,
girl, girl,
and we’ll look at their sleeping
forms in the moonlight; we’ll want
to abandon them, we’ll want them
to carry us lightyears away.
Rachel Whalen is a writer and translator from Buffalo, New York. She has an MFA from NYU, and she currently lives in Mexico City.