My love,
my Frankenstein, I made you up. I built a model lover
from the scrap heap at the neighbor’s curb on trash day,
the tin cans, shattered side tables, scavenged bits not yet
ravaged by raccoons. Do you remember how I wanted the moon?
I swallowed it in secret, the night we sat on your front lawn
in a silent feud. I cast your scapula into the woods and sent
the dog careening after it to train him on your scent. I like you better
like this. I tied a bow around your sutured joints and called them
elbow, solar plexus, kneecap. Discretion, darling, is the better part
but still I long to hear you speak. When you loved me
you called me on the telephone. Now I stitch a voice box
from cable and string. When I can figure out this radio,
its glitchy dials and rusted-out switches, I’ll make you sing.
Nancy Reddy’s work has appeared in Smartish Pace, Memorious, Best New Poets 2011, Best of the Net 2011, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she is currently a doctoral candidate in composition and rhetoric.
