A memory: You hid behind the parlor couch
so that you could hear the great man recite
his great poem. The tale within a tale. The
harassed mariner driven to the icy wastes
of the southern pole. His companions
risen from the dead. The punishment of
unabated guilt—a feeling familiar to you
on that fateful night. You were only eight.
Ten summers later its images of ice
and death and crushing guilt would grow
into your own great work. In your interwoven
tales the mariner himself would arise now
and again, still harassed, still haunted,
still confessing his unforgivable sin.
from “The Mary Shelley Sequence”
Ted Morrissey has published several novels, including Mrs Saville, a sequel to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and a winner of the Manhattan Book Award. He co-hosts the podcast, A Lesson before Writing.