His Son, Devoured, by Kas Armstrong

Saturn Devouring His Son, by Francisco Goya (Spain) 1823

​His Son, Devoured

my father,
the fearful god
crouched beneath black sky

who held me once
with white-knuckled grip
and lifted me to his lips

his breath hot and sour
against my skin, his eyes
shone white like swollen scars

through the piercing dark
I felt his mouth, full of yellow
stones, gape and grind against

my body, that gift given
by mother and father and god,
that he was so afraid of

tell me why then
that I cared not
of the things he devoured,

of the flesh torn
and swallowed by
his hungry tongue,

why then did I care
only of his hands
and that certain grip
that had held me once

Kas Armstrong

Kas Armstrong is a poet and artist from central Arkansas. They are the 2025 second-place winner of the Pat Laster Collegiate Poetry Contest and the recipient of the 2025 Margot Treitel Award for Poetry. Their work can be found in Screen Door Review, Smacked Zine, and Vortex Magazine.