Sophia Behrs at Seventeen, by Laura Chalar

Sophia Behrs, photograph by unknown, 1861.

Sophia Behrs at Seventeen
                   photographer, painter, writer; mother of 13; wife of Tolstoy

This is what she is like,
the year before she marries him --

before he gives her, this fresh-hearted
girl (yes, I know she looks feisty,

but come on), his diaries to read
which tell in searing detail

of sex with another woman;
before being pregnant from

ages eighteen to forty-four
and burying five children;

before he makes her nurse their firstborn
despite the open sores in her breasts;

before seven times copying out 
War and Peace from his tangled scribbles,

feeding and caring for family, servants
and the ubiquitous hangers-on

and pleading with him for years
not to gift away their livelihood--

Sophia, before she draws up from inside
a bucketful of something, and starts

furiously writing her own stories--
sketching flowers—taking pictures

of everything, later developed in the pantry.
Before she takes her own portrait,

a dolled-up grandmother, still
beautiful. You forget the husband’s scowl

at her side: light flocks to her, the old woman, 
same as at seventeen. Look, here is Sophia.

Laura Chalar
​
This poem was first published in the chapbook, Midnight at the Law Firm (Coal City Press, 2015)

Laura Chalar was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. She is a lawyer and writer whose most recent poetry collection, Unlearning, was published by Coal City Press in 2018.