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on the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein*
for Roald Hoffmann
My fame is your reflection. I am known
as Frankenstein. Well known. Prometheus Bound
shall not have half the legs that creak and groan
beneath this body I have lately found.
This bleeding mouth, these rheumy eyes impearled
in mists of the eternal night . . . how odd.
The murderer you’d hoped for is at large,
your manufactured destiny. My God,
look squarely on the bloodlust of your charge.
Do you not own the spirochete that curled
in my electrocuted heart? Am I
not yours, my friend? Or did your aim draw higher?
I’ll not apologize. I, too, aim high.
In your good name I haul this fatal fire
to the northernmost extremity of the world.
*Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus debuted on January 1, 1818, published in London by Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones.Rick Mullin's newest poetry collection is Transom.