between a father and a daughter
where the father commits
suicide and the grief-stricken
daughter cannot share
her anguish with anyone
because her father’s love
for her was incestuous.
PERCY FLORENCE
November 1819
We relocate again,
this time to Florence
so that I can be in the care
of Doctor Bell when I deliver
my new baby.
The labor goes easy
and lasts but two hours.
The baby looks robust and healthy
with a nose that promises
to be as big as my father’s.
I thrill to once again
be a mother,
but fear like one
about to walk a plank
that there may be
shark-infested waters
ahead of me,
that I may also lose this child.
It has been five miserable months
without a baby
and now I walk
until my feet blister
because I believe
that will help me
produce enough milk
to feed my little one.
Shelley worries over my
state of mind still,
but a little less now
that baby Percy has come.
He pleads with Maria Gisborne
to visit us, but she cannot come.
I think Shelley requires
some new companionship
but we are considered
to be radical and therefore
somewhat outcast by many people
wherever we land.
RADICAL LOVE
December 1819
Shelley says to me,
“Our love is radical
in all its definitions.
It is both
fundamental
and favoring social reform.
So when people
call us radicals
I think perhaps
they know not entirely
of what they speak.”
I hold little Percy
to my breast and proclaim,
“I am proud to live
our beliefs.”
Though sometimes when Claire
crawls under my skin
I favor the fundamental
portion of being radical.
“You are my core, Mary.”
Shelley cups his hand
over his son’s head,
and I can hardly contain
my joy.
PISA
January 1820
So that we will have
a milder climate
and can be under the care
of a better doctor
we move down the Arno to Pisa.
I find the town drab
and the Italians here shabby
as well-worn boots.
Claire and I fight daily
as though to quarrel is to breathe.
She has not seen her daughter
for far too long and we haven’t
word of Allegra for months now.
Claire acts as if it is the same
as having lost a child.
I know this to be false
and find her whining more intolerable
than if she lit me on fire.
DISTRESSING NEWS
Spring 1820
We learn that Lord Byron
now lives in Ravenna
as the acknowledged escort
of Teresa Guiccioli.
He dwells in her household
along with her husband
and so now does Allegra.
Claire writes to ask
if she might not see her daughter
as it has been over a year
since she laid eyes upon her.
Byron does not respond.
And when Claire suggests
that Allegra summer with us in Pisa,
Byron questions what kind
of parents Shelley and I make
with our godlessness,
the return of our vegetarian diet,
and worse than that
the loss of our children.
He will keep Allegra with him
or send her to a convent.
Claire frenzies herself with anguish.
I think Byron ought not point
accusations of blame
unless he himself lies beyond
reproach.
Paolo, Shelley’s former manservant,
blackmails my husband over Shelley’s
relationship to Elena Adelaide,
the baby from Naples that we left
in foster care. We hire a lawyer
to intercede for us
and stop the blackmail,
but we must also leave Pisa for now
and travel to Livorno
to stay at an empty house
the Gisbornes have there.
My little Percy suffers
and I blame myself
and my lack of producing
good milk for him.
All of these stressful events
create a drought in me.
My father insists that he
be sent more money,
and I cannot even manage
to read my mail.
I ask Shelley to sift through it
for me and read me only
the cheerful sections.
WITH AND WITHOUT CLAIRE
August 1820
We move again to a village
four miles east of Pisa
at the beginning of August.
Thanks to the prescription
of a mild climate,
calm life, and no medicine,
my Shelley finds himself
in good health and humor.
My spirits will be raised
if Claire retreats
from us for a spell.
At the end of August
my wish is granted.
Claire goes to Livorno for a month.
Unfortunately something shifts
between my love and me.
Shelley shelves the deaths
of our three children
as if they are events from a book
he long ago read.
He seems to feel that I spoil
little Percy and fret over him
like a servant fusses over a prince.
Shelley also decides that we must
cut my father out of our lives,
for the time being, as Father
sends such upsetting letters
once again demanding money.
Further, Father and Stepmother
spread gossip about us to the Gisbornes.
Maria Gisborne now refuses
my calls. But what frightens
me the most is that Shelley
and I find a river between us lately.
One I cannot wade across
where the rapids threaten
and the water deepens.
LEARNING TO SWIM
Autumn 1820
My little Percy splashes
about in his bath,
creating tidal pools
on the floor.
I have given him
a tiny paper boat
to float on the water,
but mostly he chews upon it.
I tell Shelley I want
to take lessons
to learn how to swim properly
as we spend
so many hours
on the river and at sea.
“I want to be able
to teach Percy to swim
when he is old enough.”
I dry the baby off
and find Shelley
immersed in his reading.
“Did you say something?”
he a
sks me.
CLAIRE IN FLORENCE
October 1820
Claire moves to Florence
and stays as a paying guest
in the home of a doctor,
Antonio Bojti.
The Bojtis require help
with many small children
and in exchange Antonio’s wife
teaches Claire
to speak German.
The Bojtis also introduce Claire
to their socially well-placed friends.
She makes a good hand
out of bad cards I think
in this arrangement.
We hope that Claire
will miss Allegra a little less
being surrounded by children
and also that she will learn
to become a governess
and thereby become
more independent.
Until then Shelley,
of course, takes care
of her expenses.
Shelley accompanies
Claire on her trip
to Florence, and
I worry that he enjoys
being with her more
than he does me.
I delve into my new novel,
Valperga, which is set
in fourteenth-century Lucca, Italy.
The book describes the intellectual
and libertarian possibilities
of the nation-state.
I incorporate much research
into this book.
I find it challenging and
feel I engage all parts of my brain
even more than I have in the past.
It is as though my zest for knowledge
intersects, like lines that were once
more parallel but now meet on a grid,
with my ability to imagine.
CLAIRE FOR A MONTH
December 1820
Claire will be joining
us for Christmas, a gift
I did not ask for.
I begin to feel
at home in Pisa; the weather
even in the winter feels
like spring. And the grand duke
of Florence visits in the winter,
making Pisa a center
of fashion, interest, and culture.
I wear my hair up
in combs now.
But even though
I am careful to sport
dresses of style
in pink stripe or light color,
Shelley seems not
to notice me at all.
If he wants adventure,
he invites
Claire to be his partner.
RESEARCH
Winter 1821
The excavation of facts
satisfies me as does
hoeing my garden.
After I pick through
the unnecessary information
a story begins to emerge
as a bed of flowers
blossoms once the weeds
have been cleared.
I immerse myself
in Italy’s past
in this book, Valperga,
and thereby
connect more
to the place I live now.
JANE AND EDWARD
Winter 1821
Thomas Medwin,
Shelley’s cousin who has
lived in Pisa with us
since October, introduces
us to his English friends
Edward Williams
and his unofficial wife, Jane.
Thomas and Edward
served together in India.
I am not entranced
by Edward’s military exploits,
though he boasts about them often,
but more by his love affair
with Jane, which mirrors my own.
Jane at sixteen married
a nasty naval captain
from whom she separated
the next year. Shortly afterward
she fell in love with Edward.
It was a mad love affair
like two hummingbirds
meeting midflight.
Jane broke convention
and left England as Edward’s wife
even though no divorce
officially happened.
They lived in Geneva
as had Shelley and I
and bore a son, Edward Medwin,
named for their best friend.
Jane now expects her second child
in March.
Jane is pretty,
but rather unremarkable,
like a boiled egg,
except for her musical talent.
Edward shows some promise
as an artist, but is not
our usual caliber of friend
in intellectual rigor.
Still I enjoy their company
and especially Edward’s
naval expertise.
INFLUENCE
Winter 1821
New friends enrich
our lives as does discovering
a new path into town.
Sometimes the road
proves preferable;
sometimes it is more rocks
and mud.
Either way you encounter
different views,
discover alternate
ways to experience life,
and learn capabilities
and vulnerabilities within
yourself yet unknown.
My circle of friends
widens and constricts
depending upon where we reside.
I sometimes long
for the sphere of influence
I found in England.
Lately I often engage
most intimately
with the research for my book.
BYRON AND ALLEGRA
March 1821
Byron enrolls Allegra
in a convent at the beginning
of the month.
Claire is so furious
she foams as a rabid dog;
she mutes beyond speech,
though not so beyond
speaking her mind
that she writes
Byron a scathing letter.
Because Lord Byron
promised that he would
raise Allegra himself
or at least until she was seven,
Claire decides she will
set Bryon straight.
Shelley and I unite
over the idea that Byron
should have the right
to send his daughter
to a convent and bid Claire
to write an apology come April.
SAN GIULIANO
Spring 1821
We rent a new Prini house
at San Guiliano,
with the Williamses
nearby.
Shelley writes a poem
to honor the dying John Keats
called Adonais.
I still labor to finish Valperga.
As two writers,
we ripen in Italy
as does the local flora.
As a couple, though,
we coast apart
as birds fallen
out of their migratory pattern.
I watch the love
between Jane and Edward
and wish to recapture
that exuberance with my Shelley.
I feel that my concern
for our child distances
me from Shelley;
even my writing
now seems to separate us.
I cannot broach
the space between
Shelley and me.
I must find a way
to get my Shelley back.
He wanders
so far from port.
SAILING
Summer 1821
She
lley dreams of the open seas.
He never fears
his ship will meet
rough waters
or too strong a wind.
And if he survives
the mad winds and waves,
he sees his near
misfortune
as a good omen.
I, too, dream of drifting
away with my love,
but we do not board
the same vessel lately.
I do not wish
to raise a full sail
in high wind
and risk disaster.
I want to cruise
about on days
of calm, float
paper boats together
as we did
when we first
fell in love.
BYRON AND SHELLEY
August 1821
Shelley goes to visit Byron alone
as Byron bid him come in a letter.
I surmise
that along the way
he stops to see Claire,
who lives now in Livorno,
supposedly healing from scrofula,
a form of consumption.
She has been prescribed
to bathe in the sea.
This upsets me
like a boat tossed
about by a wicked storm.
I have no recourse
and there is little I can do
but wait it out.
Claire does not know
that Shelley travels to visit Byron,
but believes that Shelley
only stops to check in on Allegra
and her well-being.
Shelley finds the four-and-a-half-year-old
spritely, treated kindly
by all of the nuns.
Byron says he has no intention
to leave Allegra indefinitely
in the convent,
which also reassures us,
and should especially
comfort Claire.
Byron remains in Ravenna
for the time being
though he has said
he wants to follow
his mistress, Teresa,
and her brother and father
out of town.
When Shelley arrives
in Ravenna, Byron tells
him of the terrible gossip
that the Hoppners have spread
like manure about us.
Elise, our former nursemaid,
alleges that Claire is Shelley’s mistress
and that the baby born in Naples
and left with foster parents
is the daughter of Shelley and Claire.
Further, the Hoppners claim
that Shelley tried to get
an abortion for Claire
and when that failed
Shelley tried to have the baby adopted.
Shelley begs me to write to Byron
to clear up these matters.
How could anyone suppose that Shelley
would abandon his own child?
I cry tears to fill an urn.
My face stains with sadness.
Then I take out my quill
and refute point by point
everything that Elise
and the Hoppners said.
DOUBT
August 1821
When the winds
of a great storm
bend down trees
and uproot my garden,
I wonder if I shall
cower or stand
amidst the ferocity.
When my child,
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