Dear Dr. Frankenstein
by Jericho Brown
I, too, know the science of building men
Out of fragments in little light
Where I’ll be damned if lightning don’t
Strike as I forget one
May have a thief’s thumb,
Another, a murderer’s arm,
And watch the men I’ve made leave
Like an idea I meant to write down,
Like a vehicle stuck
In reverse, like the monster
God came to know the moment
Adam named animals and claimed
Eve, turning from heaven to her
As if she was his
To run. No word he said could be tamed.
No science. No design. Nothing taken
Gently into his hand or your hand or mine,
Nothing we erect is our own.
Cassidy B. Charles 