FINDING SHELLEY’S BODY
Emily Mahan
I. Remains
Shelley’s wife kept his heart
in a marble jar.
It was considered very apropos.
Someone else’s wife got part of his jaw.
She would visit it over and over,
lift the little carved lid, and cry
in a very satisfying manner.
The things that could be cut up, were.
Distributed to friends or just admirers.
The best were things that touched him most.
Bedsheets and clothes, the curtains
from his room, the tablecloths he ate on.
Stains were prized, and objects
with meaning, like a pen.
II. The Painting
They stand on the blue shore of the lake,
Shelley’s friends, the men in tapered pants,
their shoes and spats not damaging that sand.
One splays a stricken hand
upon his brow, another
presses a bright cloth against his mouth.
One stands a bit back, just looking solemn,
and the fourth has knelt,
and hauls Shelley from the water.
The waves hand him up
in a uniform billow, like a cushion.
He is calm as a sleeper, intact as a statue.
III. The Pyre
Because his rictus had passed to being soft, bloated,
picked at by fish and birds,
because he was too far gone
for burial, he was burned.
They made a pyre like the Greeks had,
pine boughs and fine oils,
things that smelled very strong.
The one so honored touched the torch to his bed,
and they flinched back
from the sudden bloom of heat and light.
When the fire died there were a few bones,
marrow-cracked and blasted. And, strangely,
the heart. Shrunken, crisp, but intact,
like (or so they say) a bodhisattva’s.
The rest of him vague dust that sunk
to shapelessness at any touch.
They took what they could.