Subject to Art
by Linda Scheller
Love like water weeds ensnared
A tall and slender girl, red-haired
And pale, a stunning birch in flame
Whose famous face outstrips her name.
Her downcast grace beguiled the sight
Of every young Pre-Raphaelite.
Rosetti, Hunt, and John Millais
All painted her, but one held sway.
Rosetti kept her as his muse
And tutored her in forms and hues.
A decade passed. Unwed, unwell,
She languished in laudanum hell.
Acclaimed as genius, scorned as low,
Her art limned women’s pain and woe
In thrall to laws contrived by men
And biases Victorian.
At last, to keep her in his life,
Rosetti took her as his wife.
Addiction brought new cause to mourn:
Their longed-for child emerged stillborn.
Laudanum drowned her grief and fear.
She quaffed enough to disappear,
A fate that even Death abjures
For life is brief, but art endures.
Linda Scheller is a retired educator and the author of two books of poetry, Fierce Light (FutureCycle Press) and Wind & Children (Main Street Rag Publishing Company). Her poetry, flash fiction, and book reviews are widely published, with new work appearing or forthcoming in Slipstream, Packingtown Review, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Apricity, and SantaFe Literary Review. Scheller is vice president of Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center and volunteers as a programmer for KCBP Community Radio. Her website is www.lindascheller.com.