Frida

There has to be a butterfly still here in the form of a child asking his mom for a cell phone to play games.

In the gardens of the casa azul,

     with a wing of poinsettia.

The sunrise here must be thick brush strokes of blue wall and bougainvillea leaves,

     the way oils don’t blend to water,

     and over time ducks turn to stone,

     and the paints on the pallet evaporate their pigment and become grey.

The sunroof on the ceiling was just a mirror reflecting her in her bed,

     but it still held water and seasons,

     and let cold air sink,

     and let body warmth rise.

In the winter it is grey,

     and in the summer it is white.

In the kitchen there are five seats and five coal-fired stoves, five ceramic pots. In the winter the stoves also warm the kitchen. In the summer the coal-fire and the white sun and the body heat collide but don’t mix like water and oil so they swirl like steam rising from soup.

In the middle of the garden the small fountain holds ducks which swim so they down turn to stone.

     And by a bobbed head and bobbed dress they are fed so they don’t turn to liquid,

         where through the drain they would be reborn as pigment.

And on the bed lies two pieces of a body connected by a spine. The guests converse with each piece, which converse with each other,

     so through the skylight mirror there are four in the bed.

         Two she can see and two she cannot.

        Three which she can converse and one she cannot.

Through the water that pours from the sink she can converse with the ducks in the pond by the fountain;

     as the water splashes on them they clean their feathers.

And around a sky that now breaks blue for the spring again circle butterflies.

     On the roof of the canopy bed.

     They form clouds and a face as deep as the atmosphere.

Image: The Dream (The Bed), Frida Kahlo. Oil on canvas, 1940. Courtesy of fridakahlo.org