Free Hideous Love: The Story of the Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein by Stephanie Hemphill Page B

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    THE MEN HAVE NOT RETURNED
    July 11, 1822
Claire, Jane, and I
grow more anxious
than mothers of ailing infants.
A letter arrives
from Hunt confirming
that the Ariel left Livorno in a storm.
Leigh Hunt wants news
of the travelers’ safe arrival.
The suspense is as dreadful
as a nest of vicious cobras.
Jane fears the worst.
Even though I have not left
the villa for nearly a month,
and look more like
a ghost than a woman,
Jane and I depart for Pisa
immediately
and head to Byron’s.
Byron provides no news
except that Edward, Shelley,
and Charles Vivian had sailed
the previous Monday in a storm.
We cannot stop to rest,
but take a carriage to Livorno
in search of Trelawny and Captain Roberts.
Roberts tries to assure us
that he saw the topsails
being taken down, though
it must have been hard
to view anything for certain
in the haze of the storm.
Trelawny escorts us back to Lerici.
I feel as though
I shall go into convulsions.
As we cross the river
I fear I slog through
my lover’s grave.
Trelawny goes searching
for the men
and when we hear nothing
I gain a bit of hope.
No hope
only death,
as the sad news
finally reaches us
that three bodies
have been discovered.
Trelawny identified Shelley
by the volume
of Keats’s poems
found on his person.

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    SHELLEY’S CALL
    August 1822
I can faintly hear
my lover’s long-ago call
to join him
so that we shall never
be separated,
but united in death.
No laudanum
can bring back
my Shelley
and I cannot abandon
my child.
I close off
like a coffin lid has slid
over my senses.
Everyone sings praises of Shelley.
I find a bit of comfort in this.
I write to my father that
I feel my Shelley is ever with me.
I must live to be good and wise,
then I will deserve to join
Shelley some day.

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    A FUNERAL
    August 16, 1822
As I paralyze in grief,
Trelawny arranges the funeral.
Williams and Shelley
will be exhumed from
the graves on the beach
where they were found,
and they will be cremated.
As my father could not bear
to attend my mother’s funeral,
I cannot be present at my love’s burial.
I stay at home and write
a letter to Maria Gisborne.
I lament the fact that
Shelley and I were fighting
on the day he left
and that I begged him to stay.
I feel guilt and sorrow.
I miss my love
more than I can express.
Thank goodness for my little
Percy.
Shelley’s friends built a portable
crematorium
and brought frankincense,
salt, wine, and oil to sprinkle
on the bodies.
Trelawny said that
the scenery on the shore
was as lonely and grand
as Shelley’s poetry.
He and Byron and Hunt
imagined that Shelley’s spirit
soared above them.
Byron swam out to his boat,
the Bolivar , while Leigh Hunt
remained in the carriage
and Trelawny watched
Shelley’s body burn for four hours.
The flames were incandescent
as was Shelley, and they consumed
all of him, except his heart.
I keep Shelley’s heart
close to me always,
preserved in wine and stored
in my portable writing desk.
Whenever I need
inspiration or motivation
my dear love’s remains
will remind me
that I now have not only
my parent’s legacy to consider
but also my Shelley’s.
I must keep alight his flame.

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    ELEGY FOR MY SHELLEY
    1822
We built a world of words
and yet none satisfy now.
If you are ash
where do I store my heart?
If you are buried
who will teach our child
to say “yes”
in a foreign tongue?
If you are spirit
who will craft poems
that awaken the soul?
If you are memory
what lighthouse
calls your ship to shore?
I vow to lay down my life
to make your name known.

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