Accident on a corner in Mexico City, 1925

after Frida Kahlo

A handrail crossed my womb. Perforated my vagina.
My pelvis, an inhospitable sieve. Ferrous
pool, sacred wolves sup at crusted edges.
What is the weight of blood, of bone, of breath –
God did not take me then.

Pierced, pierced not by arrows.
Seamed with a curved carpet needle and catgut.
My body, braille of stitches, achitecture of fragments.
Ossuary.

My hands unbroken. My eyes clear. So clear.
Mis manos estan intactas, mis ojos son claros, tan claros.
A skeleton wired with fireworks slept above me.
Un regalo, una bendición.

Bound with plaster and leather. Blazoned
with satin-stitched flowers the size of planets – resplendent
as my mother’s ancestors antepassados de la madre
grit of sugar skulls crunched sweet between my teeth,
I am my own.

Henry Ford Hospital, 1932

after Frida Kahlo

Sky cyanotic. Clouds cough. Grass dark as an anvil. Far behind me the world of men stretches to the horizon. Smokestacks and water towers, buildings stacked one on top of another. A ribbon links city to city. The relentless conveyor belt of parts swings over men’s heads. Blast furnaces roar hot tongues, flames stagger towards distant stars. Feed me, Feed me more. Insatiable beast. I shout to make myself heard. Whistles shriek. No one can hear me. I cannot hear anyone. Flowers bloom and shrivel in an instant, incinerated. I am always in between.

Bed linen gorged with my blood. Tissues of the unborn, the baby I can never hold. Folded, blunt headed, feet crossed at the ankles, arms gesture a prayer – protesting his expulsion. I hold him anyway – thin red threads from navel to navel – he floats above me, above the bed, the bed that should have held us both. I am spread empty. Belly domed, knees a bridge – a passage where sharps cut and tore. Pubic hair a dark nest, a sliver against pale flesh.

Twisted – a batt of gauze to staunch. Clots, tissue, viscera. You – covered in transparent film veins blue. No breath from the branches of your lungs, no cry. Smaller than a plucked chicken at a market stall. I fought to hold you, keep you close until I could do the only thing to save you. Paint you, still nameless, but holy. Cohesion of our cells.

What ties me to this earth – Betrayed by my own body. Slow crawl as the stillborn child culled from my labyrinth. (pain, o so familiar, the slow burn, the ravish of a lover.) Each scar opened again, again. It must be this way. Sutures hum inside me. Labia fringed as orchid petals. I wanted only to paint my child, but no. Robber gloved hands took you away, fed you to steel jaws shining under a hanging bulb.

What are the works of men – I prefer my own imperfect relics. I will return in the arms of the moon.

Stieglitz Recalls An Argument, New York City, Summer 1918

after Alfred Stieglitz

I’m sure it was Japanese,
that kimono, a peace offering

after an argument, just crossed over
your breasts like wings or maybe

just the pattern of flying cranes
said to be auspicious.

As you lounged, you odalisque,
I remember the pale oval

of your face brushed with brows
your unbound hair

trailed down your arms –
those wild mustangs of your girlhood

your clavicles, your neck urgent
taut with muscles

you did not want me
so I sat in the straight chair

watched steel going up
beam upon beam girder to girder

your hands almost serene