Elizabeth Leaves A Letter For Dr. Frankenstein
Whether the clouds had abandoned Geneva that evening
no one can say now, but what I remember are roses
bruised at their edges, and china cups yellowed with age.
“I am too sick of interior vapors,” I told you,
“Find us a corner of sunlight, and hammer it down...
Tell me again I’m so lovely the insects won’t bite.”
Do you remember it, Victor? A time before pleasure
turned into sacrilege hungry to threaten the dead.
So many secrets you whispered -- but I, like a child
drawn to myself, hale and hearty to hear my own weeping,
bored by your ghost stories, left you both late and too soon.
Sunshine deserted or altered the tops of the grasses
subtly, with each changing breeze, as the shadows required --
dark, but not black, like my hair; and you claimed that each instant
some auburn-browed woman appeared, I re-entered your mind.
Later or sooner, our futures will enter it, too.
Now, though, it seems hope’s a difficult vision to conjure;
what you imagine of beauty so lodged in grim trivia
even the sentences spoken inside it are dark.
Mourning will fade, though, I know -- like your Ingolstadt nightmare.
Bells will resound. I will come to you. All will be well.