Chimera
- Jan 31, 2025
- 2 min read
by Taylor Hamann Los
I an imaginary monster compounded of incongruous parts
Doctor Moreau, are you proud? I stitched it together myself. Collected specimens & scalpels. Placed lavender bundles around its head so it could believe it was beautiful — & it was even as it shrilled in surrender, the sound both sweet & chilling. The echoes still reverberate through my chest, bouncing from bone to bone & leaving hairline fractures behind. You see, vultures pick through bodies, but I combine them while they heave — warm, wet, & alive.
II an illusion or fabrication of the mind, especially: an unrealizable dream
Most nights I dream creatures I don’t remember. I’m left with merely a shiver or curtains settling as if some wayward spirit escaped the room. I deserve worse. Doctor, tell me how the screams don’t drill into your brain & scoop out everything keeping you human, how they don’t smear themselves across the whiteboard. My hands shake with each cut, every thick strip of skin. I hallucinate meadows, poppies dotting twilit fields. I don’t feel any better.
III an individual, organ, or part consisting of tissues of diverse genetic constitution
My bone marrow thrums with deafening music. Doctor, grant me a new set of cells. Cells to make the others forget what they wanted. I need a needle prick in the hip of another, drawing out a life I wish I lived. I know regret the way joints understand weather, a sudden flash meaning either ecstasy or pain. Doctor, haven’t you ever hungered for something inside yourself to break? To collapse & reconstruct? Doctor, shape me animal, human, then animal once more.
Taylor Hamann Los holds an MFA from Lindenwood University and an MLIS from UW-Milwaukee. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Magma Poetry, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and The Shore, among others. Her debut chapbook, Between My Spine and the River, is forthcoming from Ridge Books in 2025. She lives with her family and two cats in Wisconsin. You can find her on Twitter (@taylorhamannlos) and at taylorhamannlos.wordpress.com.
