Hanna Boudreau ’28

by Hanna Boudreau ’28 on October 30, 2025

Frankenstein’s creature was born not from dust,
but from trembling hands that feared their own genius.
The spark of life given to him was like the fire
which Prometheus stole from the heavens.
And oh, what destruction
the kidnapped, red flower has caused,
by stirring the flesh which should have stayed sleeping.
All caused by a twisted creator who could not handle
the resemblance of his man-made Adam.

The creature’s first sight was the break of day.
The sunlight’s beams were cast down upon his dark fate.   
He reached toward it,
as a child does toward a mother’s face.
But there was no mother,
only the echo of a heartbeat that was not his own.
Skin of pale-yellow corruption,
stretched thin as the veil between the living
and the dead.
His hair flowed down his back,
like dripping ink or the tail feathers of a raven.
His innocent eyes were searching…
And looked upon all things with wonder.

How strange that beauty and horror
can share the same breath.
And in a single fallen leaf,
which he had lifted from the earth,
he saw his own life in its fragile green veins.
The lines drawn of a god who had forgotten his creation.

Once, by the river, he had seen a child
and wished to share with her the leaf’s soft miracle.
For a moment the creature felt as though he belonged.
But when his leathery hand lowered her into the river,
she did not float—
the gentle giant did not understand.