Lily Beaumont
My father emails me in 2020
and tells me about an article he’s written.
In Seattle, it seems, they’re taking down the revolution.
CHAZ. Full of weirdos is his verdict, joking,
“I’m a communist who hates the people.”
God, I think, same, but strike the “the”—let’s not
be too specific. Also, I haven’t really read Marx.
I guess I’m waiting for the Buzzfeed quiz:
“Design your ideal bedroom and we’ll tell you if
you’re a democratic socialist, anarcho-syndicalist,
or a green libertarian.” TBH, I still mostly want
to be a princess, though preferably in Middle-
Earth, or at least some remote planet; I go to
protests every weekend veiled in ethereal
perfumes no one can smell six feet away
and through a mask.
My father asks about my cat, who’s in remission
from FIP. Caused by a coronavirus, treated
by Chinese knock-offs of remdesivir in lieu
of proper and unprofitable veterinary patents.
For three months, I’d become a cat-mom
criminal, doing drop-offs in Starbucks parking lots.
It was after one such rendezvous that I first saw
a photo of Li Wenliang in my newsfeed,
and thought about interconnectivity in a way
that made me feel good and also shitty
about myself. Got irritated when, a few months later,
the articles about remdesivir and FIP started to roll out,
like those weeks of nightly injections had all been
plagiarized. But when the revolution comes,
I want to ask, will it also include cats?
—Submitted on 09/20/2020
Lily Beaumont’s poetry and personal essays have appeared in Open Minds Quarterly, Young Ravens Literary Review, Rise Up Review, and other journals. She holds an MA in English and gender studies from Brandeis University, and lives in Central Texas, where she works as a freelance curriculum and study guide developer.
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.