Speeches for Dr Frankenstein
by Margaret Atwood
I
I, the performer in the tense arena, glittered under the fluorescent moon. Was bent masked by the table. Saw what focused my intent: the emptiness
The air filled with an ether of cheers.
My wrist extended a scalpel.
II
The table is a flat void, barren as total freedom. Though behold
A sharp twist like taking a jar top off
and it is a living skeleton, mine, round, that lies on the plate before me
red as a pomegranate, every cell a hot light.
III
I circle, confront my opponent. The thing
refuses to be shaped, it moves like yeast. I thrust,
the thing fights back. It dissolves, growls, grows crude claws;
The air is dusty with blood.
It springs. I cut with delicate precision.
The specimens ranged on the shelves, applaud.
The thing falls Thud. A cat anatomized.
O secret form of the heart, now I have you.
IV
Now I shall ornament you. What would you like?
Baroque scrolls on your ankles? A silver navel?
I am the universal weaver; I have eight fingers.
I complicate you; I surround you with intricate ropes.
What web shall I wrap you in? Gradually I pin you down.
What caution shall I carve and seal in your skull?
What size will I make you? Where should I put your eyes?
V
I was insane with skill: I made you perfect.
I should have chosen instead to curl you small as a seed,
trusted beginnings. Now I wince before this plateful of results:
core and rind, the flesh between already turning rotten.
I stand in the presence of the destroyed god:
a rubble of tendons, knuckles and raw sinews.
Knowing that the work is mine how can I love you?
These archives of potential time exude fear like a smell.
VI
You arise, larval and shrouded in the flesh I gave you;
I, who have no covering left but a white cloth skin
escape from you. You are red, you are human and distorted.
You have been starved, you are hungry. I have nothing to feed you.
I pull around me, running, a cape of rain.
What was my ravenous motive? Why did I make you?
VII
Reflection, you have stolen everything you needed:
my joy, my ability to suffer.
You have transmuted yourself to me: I am a vestige, I am numb.
Now you accuse me of murder.
Can’t you see I am incapable?
Blood of my brain, it is you who have killed these people.
VIII
Since I dared to attempt impious wonders
I must pursue that animal I once denied was mine.
Over this vacant winter plain, the sky is a black shell; I move within it, a cold kernel of pain.
I scratch huge rescue messages on the solid snow; in vain. My heart’s husk is a stomach. I am its food.
IX
The sparkling monster gambols there ahead, his mane electric: This is his true place.
He dances in spirals on the ice, his clawed feet kindling shaggy fires.
His happiness is now the chase itself: he traces it in light, his paths contain it.
I am the gaunt hunter necessary for his patterns, lurking, gnawing leather.
X
The creature, his arctic hackles bristling, spreads over the dark ceiling, his paws on the horizons, rolling the world like a snowball.
He glows and says:
Doctor, my shadow shivering on the table, you dangle on the leash of your own longing; your need grows teeth.
You sliced me loose
and said it was Creation. I could feel the knife. Now you would like to heal that chasm in your side, but I recede. I prowl.
I will not come when you call.
