Shelley Burns Romantically, by Sinéad McClure

Shelley Burns Romantically.

Caught in his repose
Shelley sleeps comfortably
on top of a smoking raft. 
Onlookers bow their heads 
in a funereal way, 
moving closer to warm
themselves on the pyre.

Lord Byron stares 
beyond the corpse, 
and out to sea
to find his pleasure. 
Trelawney inspects his feet. 
The gathering crowd lean in closer still
for more heat.

Leigh Hunt suspects there's fakery.
He ponders, hand on chin,
how Shelley looks so well
ten days in;
not bloated
not chewed
no wrinkled, salty, skin.

Behind them all ─ a winter tree in August.
 
Sinéad McClure

Sinéad McClure is a writer, radio producer, and illustrator.  She has written and co-produced dramas that have aired on RTEjr Radio.  Her latest production "Indestructible" was broadcast on Rtejr Radio in December 2019.  Her poem "Tea & Sympathy" was published in Crossways Literary Magazine in January 2020. Her short story "Five Years" has been published in Meat for Tea, the Valley Review in Autumn 2019.  Sinéad has also written articles for ALHAUS magazine. She often revisits the theme of the natural environment in her work and has a particular interest in wildlife conservation.  She is currently working on an illustrated book of poems for younger people called Curlew Logic.