What Rough Beast | 06 28 20 | J.D. Isip

J.D. Isip
American Mutants

mourning becomes a mutant/they say
at some point the flags just remained
half-staff/half of us/half of them/half
of history is a riff on this/us/wearing

black/grey/ash/sackcloth/some skin
other than/lesser/darker/mulatto/
wasn’t a wall yet/could hold back mixed
babies/transgressions/whispering

lovers/genes/mutations/evolution
finds the fissures/seeps/crawls/keeps
the Purifiers up at night/visions of
more of us/less of them/blighted

landscape/unholy/unsanctioned/sex
between/mixing/mixing/losing purity
is ever-unacceptable/is an abomination/
a nation/sullied/must be/has to be/

cleansed/repent!/they say/but hope
we don’t/repent!/we don’t/they say
we won’t/repent!/they won’t/relent
until/they find the fissures/seep/crawl

into sleep/dreams/waking /looking
over our shoulders/afraid/on edge/
a stick/a knife/just to feel safe/a gun
is all they needed/just one/of us/

to justify/the laws/the camps/brands
to wear/to warn/to walk, again/to ships/
to furnaces/to laboratories/to think/
they think/this works/it’s/as if, the Pure

had never had a Revelation.

—Submitted on 04/30/2020

J.D. Isip is the author of Pocketing Feathers (Sadie Girl Press, 2015). His work in all genres has appeared in The Rainbow Journal, Elsewhere, Dual Coast Magazine, Poetry Quarterly, Rogue Agent, and other journals. Isip is an English professor in Plano, Texas.

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