hot with fever
and cold with tears,
calls out for aid
I wonder if I shall
hinder or help
him to recover.
When my husband
requests that I refute
rumors that
he has been unfaithful,
I wonder if
my pen lies
or tells truth.
A LETTER FROM MY SHELLEY
Late Summer 1821
My Shelley writes
with a bit of good news,
much needed relief
amidst this landscape of disarray.
He convinces
Byron to come to Pisa
with Teresa. I delight
because Claire shall
certainly want to keep
distance between herself
and the man she so loathes
for sending her daughter
to the convent.
Lastly, Shelley suggests
that Byron and Leigh Hunt
begin a new journal called
the Liberal. The Hunts
will now join us in Pisa as well,
and stay with Lord Byron.
My heart expands
like a purse full of pounds.
I will see my dear friends again.
JUGGLING MISTRESSES
Autumn 1821
Byron does not come
directly to Pisa, but remains
in Ravenna for two months.
His mistress, Teresa,
arrives straightaway
and I am the one
who is to visit her
and make her feel
welcome as the wind
on a stifling summer day
here in Pisa.
Claire is also in Pisa.
Happily we are
getting along like
rhythm and drum,
as Shelley and I
entreated Byron to allow Claire
to see her daughter.
Even though we failed
to be granted permission for Claire,
Claire in a mature manner
shows gratitude.
She has been a dear
helping me with little Percy.
The only trouble is
that I must also
attend like a handmaid
to Teresa, Byron’s latest mistress.
Claire kindly assists me in choosing
furniture for our new home
on the Lung’Arno,
and for Byron’s palazzo
across the river.
She never complains
that she does work
for one she so dislikes,
but cloaks her despair
as though it were
a hideous scar.
Teresa worries that Byron
may never arrive,
as I often did with Shelley.
But come November
Byron shows up in grand fashion
complete with a traveling carriage,
mountains of baggage,
dozens of horses,
and a menagerie of exotic animals.
Claire leaves Pisa
on the day that Byron arrives.
She sees his traveling train
on the road and swears
on her daughter’s life,
it will be the last time
they cross paths.
GATHERING A GROUP OF LIKE-MINDED MALE INDIVIDUALS
Winter 1821–1822
Shelley believes
we can put down
permanent roots in Italy now;
for like ripples in a pond,
a group of expatriates
gathers to form his
community of friends.
With the Williamses,
the Hunts, and Byron
we will be assured good company.
Byron centers the group.
He lives at the Palazzo Lanfranchi,
a cavernous Renaissance building
overlooking the Arno
that frightens his servants
with its creaks and moans
and is said to be haunted by ghosts.
When Edward Williams
meets Byron, the celebrity,
he awes over his grandeur
as one is astounded
by a great blue whale.
Shelley’s cousin, Thomas Medwin,
also arrives to join our group.
Medwin decides he will record
all of Lord Byron’s words
and thoughts. We tease him
for his incessant scribbling,
and Byron says more
and more fanciful things
to aid Thomas’s pen.
Byron arranges a schedule
based upon his preference
for rising late. The men—
Medwin, John Taafe, and Edward—
ride out to a farm
to have shooting contests.
All the horses and arrangements
are courtesy of Byron.
Sometimes we ladies
attend the shooting match,
but often I stay back
at the house to care
for Percy and read and write.
Byron generally dines alone
and then calls upon Teresa
as though she were a servant.
Every Wednesday Byron hosts
dinner parties for his new
acquaintances, but these
are male affairs, with heavy
eating and drinking.
Shelley and Edward
lounge around Byron’s palazzo
on days when rain
makes walking unviable,
and they play billiards.
Shelley produces not
as much work as he would like,
but I think, as one overwhelmed
by a hurricane,
the immense productivity
and character of LB
humbles and intimidates him.
I reduce to picking
flowers and talking morality
with Jane. But I miss being part
of the political and poetical
conversations of the men.
MY FATHER’S PRAISE
Winter 1822
When I sink low or need
a little inspiration for my writing
I remember the words
my father bestowed
upon my first novel,
“the most wonderful work
to have been written
at twenty years of age
that [he] has ever heard of.”
His praise buoys me
through deep and rough tides.
I regain energy to swim to shore.
MORE SEPARATION
Winter 1822
Though it chills not outside,
inside our apartments
it often feels icy.
Shelley and I, unlike
Jane and Edward, do not steal
off to find moments alone lately.
We grow like two trees
whose limbs and roots
may be intertwined
but who nevertheless stem
upwardly apart.
Edward Trelawny now
arrives in Pisa. He claims
to know everything relating
to ships, and Edward Williams
and my Shelley set their hearts
on building a boat.
Trelawny, of course,
knows the perfect man
to craft them one.
Trelawny is like sugar
mixed with butter.
Because of his brooding figure
and tales of fantastical adventure,
I enjoy him immediately
as does everyone in our circle.
Jan
e and I question
Shelley and Edward’s
designs to construct a boat,
but boys will be boys
and we have little to say about it.
I enter more into Pisan
society, attending balls
and the sort of functions
that bring repulsion to my lover’s eyes.
He refuses my idea to host a party.
I send my novel Valperga
to my father for publication
after Shelley’s editor
refused to look at it.
It pains me that we are
no longer united
even in our literary accomplishments,
very different from when
we worked together
on Frankenstein.
I copy Byron’s poems for him
and recopy the cantos of Don Juan
into a more readable form.
I amuse my toddler Percy
and prepare for the arrival
of the Hunts. I bake mince
pies for a Christmas
that I do not spend
with Shelley as all the men
celebrate it together at Byron’s.
I do all of these things alone,
like a duet of only one voice,
without the one I most love.
DANCING AT A BALL
Winter 1822
My feet glide
across the floor
and I am swept up
in a moment of ardor
and light
like one sprinkled
with fairy dust.
I forget
worry and woe
and embrace
movement.
Twirls of happiness
kiss my forehead,
and I fly free.
My only wish
is that my Shelley
was here to partner me.
JANE WILLIAMS
Winter 1822
Shelley’s new infatuation
appears to be Jane.
He admires her easy
way and her singing voice
and buys her a guitar.
I believe he may
write secret poems
to her as he did
with Claire in the past.
I know this is just
Shelley’s way of the sun
and expect that the infatuation
will pass, but sometimes it makes
me feel as though
I am a garment of clothing
with holes and stains
no longer wearable.
Shelley is not one to be material
in his possessiveness,
but pretty new things
often attract his attention.
I try to speak to Edward
about this but he seems
a little flattered
that Shelley takes
an eye to Jane.
I try to remember
that this too shall pass,
although has it ever really
passed with Claire?
At least I become pregnant
again, so old clothing
or not I am not completely
disposable.
A CATASTROPHE
March 24, 1822
On the way home from shooting,
Shelley, Byron, Pietro, Trelawny,
Taafe, and Captain Hay
meet an Italian dragoon called Masi.
Teresa and I watch the action
from a nearby carriage.
Masi gallops toward Taafe
and knocks him from his horse.
Then my Shelley chases Masi,
and a confrontation arises
wherein Shelley’s face is cut
by Masi’s sword,
and Shelley and Captain Hay
are thrown from their horses
like there has been a joust.
Masi then disappears
back into the city,
cowardly among the crowds.
Byron and his servants find him,
and Byron challenges Masi
to a duel, but as a throng gathers
one of Byron’s servants
stabs Masi in the stomach
with a pitchfork.
Masi is expected to die.
Much fuss occurs
over these events because
it will be murder if Masi dies.
Thankfully he lives.
I record everyone’s account
of the incident for the police
at Byron’s request.
We are now as notorious
in Pisa as we are in England.
They banish Byron’s servant
from the city.
We can go nowhere
without scandal it seems.
I tell Byron I prefer
when he sends me his
poems to copy out.
MY FAIR HAND
Spring 1822
I transcribe the brilliant lines
of Byron and Shelley
in my fair hand.
I trace family lines
of writers and philosophers
on my fair hand.
I nurture a small child
in body and spirit
with my fair hands.
But sometimes I wonder,
when the wind throws
whirlwinds round my feet,
if I have a fair hand?
ALLEGRA
Spring 1822
Before Byron left Ravenna
the mother superior of the convent
invited him to visit his daughter Allegra.
Allegra wrote to ask her father to come and see her.
He neither answered his daughter’s letter,
nor dropped by the convent.
In February 1822,
Claire planned to take
a job as a governess in Vienna.
She begged Byron to allow her
to see Allegra before she left.
Byron refused, so Claire
remained in Florence
instead of going to Vienna.
By the early spring,
Claire hatches a scheme
wherein we should liberate
Allegra from her cage
of the convent.
Shelley and I stand
firmly against this
as it is as foolish
as going shoeless in the snow.
Byron will certainly find out,
and with his money and power
could destroy us all.
He might even engage Shelley
in a duel over his daughter.
Claire gives up her crazy
ideas of freeing Allegra,
but fears that her daughter ails.
In April, we find out
that Allegra has died from typhus.
She is only five years old.
Teresa breaks the news
to Byron, who at first
is devastated and cannot
be moved from his chair,
but then never wishes
Allegra’s name to be mentioned
to him again.
I fear Claire’s reaction.
She overhears us discuss
the convent and guesses
that something is wrong with Allegra.
On April 30 we inform her
that her dear daughter has died.
Shelley worries Claire will
go mad from grief,
but she remains solid
as an iceberg. Of course,
we cannot see
all that floats beneath
the surface.
SYMPATHY
Spring 1822
We share more than
the loss of a childhood home now,
Claire and me.
We both know
that sorrow cannot be measured
by the size of a
little one’s shoe.
A part of you
buries under the earth
never to be retrieved,
a sound without an echo.
I hold my sister’s hand,
wordless,
but our grasp understands.
THE RETURN OF CLAIRE
May 1822
Claire comes to Pisa
unannounced on May 21.
She becomes another
member of our group
of exiles, though
she refuses to visit Byron.
She has become calmer
than I have seen her in years,
as though in some ways
the finality of Allegra’s death
removes her from the purgatory
in which she suffered.
Shelley and Edward’s boat
arrives mid-May and they
delight in
everything about the Don Juan
except its name.
Shelley calls it Ariel.
I suffer from this pregnancy.
I fear trauma.
Claire allows me some relief
and helps with Percy.
Yet the only time I am truly
happy and feel well
is when aboard the boat Ariel.
I lie down with my head
on Shelley’s knee.
There I can close my eyes
and allow the wind
and the swift motion
of the boat alone
to soothe me.
I am not sure that
I could handle
even a thimble’s worth
of grief right now.
MISCARRIAGE
June 16, 1822
I bleed as though
I have been gutted
and slip in and out
of consciousness.
Jane and Claire
send for a doctor
and ice to slow
the incessant bleeding.
The ice arrives before
the doctor. No one
will say it aloud,
but I have lost so much blood
we all fear that I am going to die,
as my mother did with me.
Shelley forces me
into an ice bath
which stems the flow of blood
until the doctor arrives.
The doctor swears
Shelley saved my life.
For days I can do little more
than crawl from my bed
to the balcony I am so weak.
My dream of a new family
is dead.
There was a kicking,
a beat inside my self,
yet beyond me,
a voice that was squelched out.
And I ask only, why?
THE HARD DAYS
June 1822
I know there are times
when I must be difficult
to bear, when sorrow
strips away my smile
and remorse cripples my limbs.
I know I can be cold
and distant as the moon,
dependent upon and awaiting
light from another.
I close myself off
like an eyelid,
protect myself from
viewing certain horrors,
but obscure myself
from witnessing joy as well.
Still I struggle like a tree
in a tornado
to be good and rooted
for those
who love me most.