the strongest, most brazen ship on the sea.”
And he gives his paper boat a shove
onto the river.
I thrust my craft forward,
“And I christen thee the Shelley,
the master of tides, the builder of ships.”
Our paper boats crest
the river’s pooling,
floating along the shore
together.
“Your construction
withstands the waters.”
Shelley smiles and lights
a match. “But not fire.”
He flames our cruising ships
so they are pyres
upon the water,
brilliant and smoking
upstream.
Jane and I clap our hands.
LOVE AFFAIR
Summer 1814
I shall wear my tartan
dresses now
for he is as dear to me
as the Scottish countryside
from whence the material came.
I am enraptured
in his high ideals
bound up in clouds
of his noble thoughts.
He stares at my crown
of red hair
and I swear he admires
not only the resemblance
I bear to my mother’s portrait
over the mantelpiece,
but also the match of what
lies beneath.
He worships the best
part of me,
that which most men
would discount,
that which gives
me greatest pride,
my brain.
We talk of politics
and literature
and he vows
to be my new instructor.
He is generous
like none I have laid
eyes upon.
He gives his shoes
to the poor when he has no coin.
Like the monarch’s
two wings
I can match
him wit for wit.
We fit glove to hand,
and he praises the finding
of an intellectual equal.
I am happier now
than ever I have been,
more joyous
than when I am reading
my favorite book.
IS THERE ONLY ME?
June 1814
My feelings overtake me
more swiftly than quicksand
and I tend to forget
that I alone do not grace
Mr. Shelley’s life.
His wife, Harriet, came before me
when she was but my age
and Shelley unburdened
her from her life of confines
as he promises to do for me.
I may be many things,
but I wish never to be a fool.
AT MY MOTHER’S GRAVE
June 26, 1814
The stone reads
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin.
I learned my alphabet
under the shade of this willow,
spelling out letter by letter
the name Mother.
Jane finally retreats
like a sad pup
and leaves Shelley and me alone.
Shelley grasps my hand.
“I have been on a long quest
for love. You are a dear friend
to me, but dearer more than that.”
He pauses; his piercing blue eyes ignite.
“I was an unhappy boy at Eton,
bullied and misunderstood.
I have a father who thinks
me mad for my principles
and at times would have liked
to commit me to an asylum.
I have been tempted and obsessed
with magic, with chemical experiments,
and with death,
and shall likely always be.
“But all of this has made me
the man that I am—
one now devoted to you.”
I feel light-headed
as though I
hang upside down.
I almost don’t want to ask,
but I must know.
“What of your wife, Harriet?”
He tucks the hair
behind my ear and whispers,
“I am not sure that she
is so devoted to me anymore.
I can’t even be certain
that the baby she carries is mine.”
He sits up straight
and adjusts his collar.
“We are no longer married
in mind nor spirit,
nor love.
We never were a true match.”
While these words
trickle from his lips
he looks deflated,
as if someone draws
blood from his face.
My mother wrote
about the constraints
of marriage and warned
against its conventions
and restrictions, for women especially.
This love I feel
for Shelley may come
but once,
and I wonder, Mother,
what to do?
I wrap my arms
around his wiry frame
and confess,
“I am completely yours.”
JANE
Summer 1814
My stepsister plays a role
she seems to well like,
the conduit for the love
that Shelley and I have found.
She is a river
that brings Shelley and me together
by chaperoning our time.
Her generosity
might be perplexing
except that she
loves a good romance novel,
and in this affair
she is like the paper
upon which we
write our story.
She is necessary
to us right now,
and it seems
Jane loves little more
than to be needed.
FATHER FIGURE
July 6, 1814
Father is outraged.
The house quakes
with anger
as though we have
upset a hive
of frightened wasps.
Shelley asks my father today
to be with me
and a resounding “No!”
echoes through all chambers.
Father must have
forgotten his own
principles of free love
and his proclamations
about the absurdity of marriage.
He banishes Shelley
from ever seeing me
as Shelley is married to Harriet.
Always more God
than man,
today Mr. Godwin decides
to act as any ordinary
father.
I am perplexed.
Stepmother must be at root.
LAUDANUM
July 1814
Letters pass
as I am trapped in the tower
of our home and Shelley
is forbidden to see me.
Jane secures our secret notes,
our wily messenger pigeon,
while Fanny frets
that we will be found out.
My brothers, as usual, pay no mind
to anything not concerning them.
I miss the smell of Shelley,
the earthy, mad look in his eyes.
He sends me his book-length poem,
Queen Mab, inscribes the book to me,
renouncing Harriet again.
“Love is free,
to promise forever to love
the same woman is not less absurd
than to promise
to believe
the same creed: such a vow,
in both cases, excludes us
from all enquiry.”
Shelley finally cannot be held back.
He dashes into the schoolroom
of our Skinner Street home
with a wild look.
He holds out a bottle of laudanum
and brandishes a small pistol.
“Swallow this bottle,” he pleads,
“and we shall be united in death.”
The color drains from my face
as though my love shoots
a bullet into my heart.
Tears plunge down my cheeks.
“Please don’t harm yourself.
Go home,” I beg.
“I am eternally yours already.
I pledge you fidelity forever
if you will only see reason.”
Shelley looks mystified
as though he may have ingested
the poison before arriving here.
Still he tucks the pistol
in his belt and, deflated,
ambles to the door.
He leaves the bottle of laudanum behind.
WITHOUT ME
July 1814
I hear that my love
takes an overdose
of laudanum,
and the doctor has been called.
I hold tight the bottle
Shelley left for me
and wonder if I should,
in some Shakespearean manner,
swallow its contents as well.
I learn Shelley will survive,
but Jane and I
are trapped,
not allowed
to breathe fresh air
as though we are
petty criminals.
Fanny tries to cheer me
with news of Shelley,
and the porter of our
little bookshop
exchanges letters for us,
but this will not suffice.
I must see his fragile face,
know for certain
that he will thrive.
Sleep is beyond me.
Food holds no luster.
One could drink my daily tears
by the teacup.
Father and Stepmother
know nothing of love,
know nothing of the pain
it feels to have one’s limb
separated from one’s body.
This will not do.
ESCAPE
July 24, 1814
Black bonnets strapped
to our chins,
silk traveling gowns
corseting our ribs,
Jane and I cat out
into the dark morning.
The air at four o’clock.
is wet with heat.
Our nerves charged
and excited as a murder
of crows after shotgun fire.
Shelley’s velvet arm
dangles over the carriage door.
His left boot taps
impatient, impatient, impatient,
as a child
awaiting our arrival,
eager for our departure.
He settles Jane
like a delicate vase
carefully into her chaise.
I think I hear
boots on the cobblestone,
think I distinguish
the faraway echo
of my father’s voice,
but it is only horse hooves.
With one hoist into that carriage,
my lover orphans me.
He cloaks me in the cushion
of his arms and we race
away from Spinner Street
on the bumpy road to Dover.
A BOAT TO CALAIS
July 1814
Weak from carriage travel,
I collapse, limp as wilted greens.
Shelley was certain
we would be pursued
and hired out four horses
to speed us along.
I have to breathe fresh air
and walk about
every time the carriage stops
to keep from vomiting.
We cross the channel
in a small fishing boat.
The water begins calm
as a sleeping dog
but then churns up
into a rage of storm.
Our little boat tosses
to and fro. We sit on the boat’s hull,
my head upon Shelley’s quaking lap.
He fears we will die
on this little raft.
Yet he is not sad,
for in death we will unite
never to be separated.
The storm quells
as we approach France.
Dawn breaks in streams
of orange and pink.
Shelley believes
this to be a good omen.
His spirits lift
like a fog dissipates.
“A bright future lies before us,”
he says.
A BRIGHT FUTURE
July 1814
I see my future
now not as something
intangible like a dream,
but like a boat
meeting land
after time spent at sea,
a destination I will reach.
Shelley holds my hand
when the water
splashes inside the boat
and the sky troubles
itself with a wicked storm.
He sings to the birds of the air,
charms even the wind
with his words.
He accompanies me,
a noble partner,
as I travel
toward my life.
RETRIEVING CLARA JANE
July 29, 1814
Our beyond sterling reputations
tarnish
by a single expedition
it seems.
The rumors abound
about our elopement.
Harriet, Shelley’s wife,
goes so far as to say
that my father
sold me and Jane to Shelley
for fifteen hundred pounds.
Stepmother arrives in Calais
with the intent to return to London
with her daughter in tow.
I am beyond saving,
and besides, my father
did not come after me.
Stepmother sends a note bidding
Jane come see her.
Who knows what sorcery
and threats she employs,
but by night’s end
she convinces her daughter
to accompany her back to London.
Jane wishes to see Shelley
one last time
and inform him of her plans.
Why must Jane have counsel
Within the hour
Jane decides to continue
on our European adventure
and leave behind her family.
My elopement with Shelley
seems to acquire an air
of permanence now.
And it seems that Jane
may well be entangled
in that arrangement.
But do we really need her
anymore?
I already share
Shelley with Harriet.
Must I also share him
with my stepsister?
NEVER ENOUGH MONEY
August 1814
We embark on
our European adventure,
a sense of daring
on the horizon.
Shelley and I begin
a joint journal of
our travels.
Jane, never wanting
to miss out on anything
we do, takes to her own pen
as well.
We carriage to Paris,
but dear Shelley
did not plan well enough
for this journey.
Sadly we haven’t the funds
we need to continue
on to Switzerland directly
and in the same manner.
Paris is not the city
I expected.
The art lacks spirit
and the gardens stand
formal and dull
as ladies of the court.
But I elope with my dear love,
pursuing my heart and mind,
and break away from Stepmother
and Father
and all of their restrictions.
When we haven’t a pound
in our purse,
Shelley asks his publisher
to forward him money.
But all he receives
is a cold rebuke.
I am not worried for
“omnia vincit amor,”
love conquers all.
My Shelley sells
his watch and chain
and after much fuss
obtains a loan
for sixty pounds.
Jane and I spend
hours trapped together
with nothing to do
but stare at our bonnets
and practice our French.
I question again
why she is even here.
Shelley says if we are prudent
we can travel
the two hundred fifty miles
by foot to Switzerland
and afford it.
Jane and Shelley
leave me alone
as I ail
and purchase a donkey
to carry our wares.
Halfway to the next village
it appears Jane made
a poor choice of animal;
the donkey buckles
like a woodsman chopped off its legs.
We trade the donkey
along with some money
for a mule. But then
my Shelley sprains his ankle
and must ride the mule.
It must be quite
an appearance
to see Jane and me trudge
behind in our silk traveling gowns,
the flies at a constant swirl
about our heads.
Road travel is dirty
as a beggar’s shoe,
and the inns where we lodge
are inhospitable
to anything but rats.
Still, I have my Shelley
and my freedom
and that is all
I truly require.
FREEDOM
August 1814
Unfettered,
with a pen in my hand,
I am as a colt
released from her fence.
I rush toward
new scenery,
devour the landscape
because I have never
witnessed, unbridled,
such freedom before.
I wish to record
every detail,
do not want to forget
the breeze and smell
of each new land
we touch.
For perhaps if I find
the right words
Father will understand
why I left.
TRAVELING TO SWITZERLAND
August 1814
After much heat and dirt,
but little debate,
we abandon the idea
of walking to Switzerland