Creation
by Paxton Knox
for my humanities final i made a clay recreation of the vitruvian man
clay squeezed through the gaps of my fingers like hamburger meat
there was a special delight in carving out the lines of his chest and abdomen
divine focus given to the placement of his nipples
a childish delight in forming a clay phallus the size of my pinkie nail and attaching it with
gentle pressure and a smirk
he’s well-endowed, our vitruvian man
(he’s not even vitruvian, is the secret
perhaps he isn’t even a man)
even through the missteps
i skewer him with a rod so he can stand upright
and accidentally force his head clear off his body
(i’m hospitalized for 10 days
even though i have pink hair and pink clothes and a soft protruding form
for the first time, someone asks me if im a girl or boy or something else)
the delight of the vitruvian man
is that on paper he is a man
and in clay he is an eight-limbed flailing beast
undressed and unashamed
with a narrow waist and hips made for grabbing and curls touching his shoulders
as he claims another victim to his ideals
desire mirror-written to be read by the most open-minded of students
our man teaches those who seek it out a master class
in how to perfectly measure out the proportions of a body
and still end up living inside a squirming, monstrous and wondrous form
on how to fit into both a circle and a square at once
Paxton Knox is a queer poet and writer living in Oklahoma with their little dog. They can be found on twitter @paxtonknox.