Shelley’s Monster Speaks

by Órfhlaith Foyle

My left hand
Builds a grave and puts words in
Dead words that don’t shoot
Words that are born but
Slip and cripple me.
All words perform acts
That mean nothing
In the end.
A hole in the ground where your brain
Turns and sees its own oyster gleam,
A lychee gloss of eye.

My left heart creeps over my right.
Ventricle wars.
Like new bones climbing from an
Older grave.
My lychee eyes turns dark under a
Newborn heel.
My nose is peeled inside out
And letters are halfway mutant.
Shelley’s monster lies in wait,
Mumbling through green shot grass
And he lists his kills on his left hand
His kiss kills.
Thrills and the sun is backwards over
The sky and the earth smell of dirt
All is red raw drip, flesh sponge
Birth, and the sky rips out its stars
And the lake is boiled anew.

Shelley’s monster and I walk across
A convenient heath. The air is acid morn.
Our feet splodge in mud. His nails are
half–grown and his teeth are sly
Through his smile.

Hand in hand, we walk. My left hand
Remains perfect. My right hinges from its
Haphazard wrist. Sheep muse at us
and the wind tussles my dress.
Far below is a crescent valley, inhabited
Less these days. We sit on a high stone.
Hundreds of years pass. Habitation ebbs
And flows. Graves spring with life and
life falls dead.
Shelley’s monster speaks:

‘How dreadful is the word.’