by Autumn H. Thomas
For Viktor
Somewhere within the limitless bounds
An organism waits in embryo
Waits
Waits
Waits
For an insult to occur
A false limb, a rat tail, an extra vertebrae
Like the woman of Une Odalisque
Lain strewed across the canvas
Elongated and elegant within
The cultural shift
Unwitting to the outcome of circumstance
A mother in the sense of an antonym
Like a cat on a ledge
Batting at the moth, on the
Other side of the glass
A child born in slight
Raised by dissimilar hand
Spoon-fed but always longing for
Kin
Dread in defying the laws of nature
The monster behind the mask of his creator
Wears her face like his own skin
Peeling at the edges
Stitches coming loose with every step
sagging in ways unnerving
Oneself
Concealing the sculpture within
Using word as chisel to scrape away
His fate
Writing lyrics of found family
Self–baptised
from monster to creator
“Viktor”
***
Autumn H. Thomas (she/they) is a graduate of Hollins University in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. She now lives in beautiful Prescott, Arizona, where she continues the art of observation while editing Woodsqueer Literary Journal. Their other works can be read in Exist Otherwise, Active Muse, The Hunger, Belt Review, Children Churches and Daddies, Powders Press, and Cleaver.
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