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I a n  C.  S m i t h

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Don Juan Undone

The cremation crew roars, sings the long way home.

Byron told Trelawny he could identify,

by its teeth, any body he had known.

Ned Williams’ jawbone, with a boot

plus a black handkerchief, had been enough.

They flung incense on the pyre. Byron

fled from his nausea and that lame foot,

splashing into his preferred element, the sea,

where he spewed, his mind acrawl with putrefaction.

After the searching spade crushed Shelley’s skull

Byron had again swum, far out and for so long

the sun blistered his lordly skin.

The carriage jolts Shelley’s separate heart

sharing this journey to Pisa.

They cry out in pain, pissed as poets.