Fanny & John

In tribute to the great love letters of Fanny Brawne and John Keats.

Fanny & John

By Erin L George

 

She wondered if he slept in her bed

For inspiration, unknowing

When she was away.

She’d drawn a fairy princess (who refused to eat)

On its headboard

As a child.

She asked him:

“Could you teach me poetry?

I don’t understand it.”

He twirled for her in evening’s light

Tattooing mud prints on the floor.

He was tired.

She came, the next day, for a lesson

In poetry, knowing how to bring his magic

Back - eternally.

He worried the cost of the lesson

Would be the poet

And sighed.

“Poetic craft is a carcass, a sham.

If poetry does not fall as natural as leaves from the tree,

Then it should not come out at all.”

He was in great debt

He needed to write for a living

And was suspicious of women.

Ruled by shrews,

mused by angels -

He only loved his sister.

His eyes were suitcase brown

And she no longer cared

A dam thing for stitches.

She'd made a butterfly farm

in their honor.