Sonnet To The Brontes Poem by Joanna Costello

The Bronte Sisters by Patrick Branwell Brontë, c.1834. Oil on Canvas, National Portrait Gallery


You sit so still in your crusted frame
as if you left your soul-prints on the wall,
each retained themselves within the muse
of the perfect portrait of your flaws.
Your concealed smiles veiled under paint are
enigmatic, mischievous like your books.
It seems so strange to think you have lived
and combed your hair and eaten your dinner
without thinking that greatness was looming
like a sickness that you tried to destroy.
The painting of your faces in my mind
always allows me to see your eyes close.
In a moment, your eyes seem to be mine
and I know your lives will only ever be yours.