Not canvas or metal
can uncloud the mystery,
only a glance
behind the spell of chiseled eyes,
under a forest
of eyebrow.

2-  Retablos

To paint the misery of pain
and draw the absent
child, the absent foot,
Frida adds a flying ribbon,
a floating dove,
and frames agony
in flowers and
peacocks.

3-  Frida

Frida paints herself
from the image on the mirror,
Diego sealed to her forehead
like the eye of enlightenment,
Diego sealed to her soul
and the balcony
of the Blue House.
Over a background of jungles,
Frida paints unstill lives,
clips butterflies
and hummingbirds to her tresses,
wears necklaces
of root and bough,
the vegetable Frida
of wild eyebrows,
of the heart-shaped palette
and endless color.
Here sits Frida,
at the wounded table,
to eat passion
caught in the throat,
to name calla lilies and skulls,
the Sun, Xolotl, the waning Moon.
In a wheelchair,
at the end, Frida sits
to carve, in Death's arms,
LONG LIVE LIFE
on the red flesh
of a watermelon.
 

Copyright 1998, Lorraine Healy
 

Lorraine Healy is an Argentinian poet, writer, and translator. She has had poems published in String Town, Bueno, The Southern Cross (Buenos Aires, Argentina), and is the 1998 Hedgebrook Poetry Award winner.  She lives on Whidbey Island on Puget Sound with her dog, Mendieta, and other humans and canines.

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