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.
SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.
If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.