The Bride of Dr. Frankenstein
When the wind blusters against the shutters
I pretend it isn’t you sputtering, pleading.
I can’t help it my sweet!
Every night I am quarrelling
As you lie dormant, beautiful.
Every night I mix tonics,
Tread where others dare not go
For spare ribs or a suitable organ.
But school doesn’t teach the alchemy of a soul,
How to turn water into blood,
And death into a wife.
You were once animate and whole
Until a monster strangled you
And somehow through my own creation
I could feel my thumbs meeting over your larynx.
But tonight we will see life!
I have reconstructed organs,
Rewired veins, and I have the elixir.
A flash from the sky hits the spire
And your index finger twitches and one eye flutters,
Your mouth crooks ajar but forgets to mutter
“I love you, Victor.”
So, on the cusp of coming to life
Something curls up in me and dies,
At the site of my love igniting,
To the crack and simmer of thunder.
I’ll admit,
I always aspired to be a scientist,
But I never expected to learn what makes
Robins sing when the snow melts
And why crows caw when they find
A week old carcass festering in the sun:
Love weighs even more at the end of a scourge
Than the beginning of a storm.
I pretend it isn’t you sputtering, pleading.
I can’t help it my sweet!
Every night I am quarrelling
As you lie dormant, beautiful.
Every night I mix tonics,
Tread where others dare not go
For spare ribs or a suitable organ.
But school doesn’t teach the alchemy of a soul,
How to turn water into blood,
And death into a wife.
You were once animate and whole
Until a monster strangled you
And somehow through my own creation
I could feel my thumbs meeting over your larynx.
But tonight we will see life!
I have reconstructed organs,
Rewired veins, and I have the elixir.
A flash from the sky hits the spire
And your index finger twitches and one eye flutters,
Your mouth crooks ajar but forgets to mutter
“I love you, Victor.”
So, on the cusp of coming to life
Something curls up in me and dies,
At the site of my love igniting,
To the crack and simmer of thunder.
I’ll admit,
I always aspired to be a scientist,
But I never expected to learn what makes
Robins sing when the snow melts
And why crows caw when they find
A week old carcass festering in the sun:
Love weighs even more at the end of a scourge
Than the beginning of a storm.