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Summer on the Lake: Villa Diodati, 1816

Who really knows
who slept with whom.
There were three men,
two women, one pregnancy
and many rolls
of thunder. There were
ghost stories, boat rides,
and strange Albanian songs.
The creation of Frankenstein’s monster.

Did it matter who was related,
who married, who mad.
Did it matter if the fingers
came from a grave,
the belly from a cow.

What mattered was fire
clay, water, wine
a bottle of laudanum.
What mattered was Benjamin Franklin’s kite
and the pull of the sea.