“I was told to beware my wedding night.”
—Elizabeth Frankenstein

She still isn’t sure whose bride she’s supposed to be.
People call him Doctor but she’s never seen him help anyone.
People call her Bride of. The Bride of. Of this broken man
who made a broken man from parts of broken men. The Doctor
takes her to bed. Runs his tongue along the seams that join her, as
if to solder them with spit. Touches where her heart should be.
Touches the pieces of her that were his Bride’s—his Real
Bride’s—earlobes, breasts, the soft skin behind each knee.
She doesn’t need to ask what turned this woman into parts.
People call him a Monster, the one she was made for. His scars
her body’s twin. People call him by the doctor’s name.
She’s seen him hold a beaker a daisy a kitten a child,
gentle  in  the  mixing  bowl  of  his  hands.
Yet  when  she  cleans  the  lab,   she  finds
glass ground fine, like sand & petals bruised, sweet-rotten;
fur   &   bones;   blood   &    tiny   shoes
& wonders how long until she is broken down for parts.