Frida in Detroit
 
Winds whip off the river,
icy shards blow through cracks
around the window, sending chills
  through Frida.
She fools with her hair,
stares in disbelief at
the gray, brown, white outside
and summons up images in
  high relief:
birds of paradise, hot yellow greens
  and almost-red oranges,
spider monkeys, with dart-eyed energy,
nimble fingers tearing at anything that
  might be food.
Some are wounded, some are wounding,
some, the creators, are both.
Diego with his cronies, the murals.
Frida alone in a donated apartment.
Today an ad for a used car claimed,
  "Only slightly damaged,"
as if all departures from the ideal were
  relative and maybe not even visible.
Not exile, Frida thinks, not a life bled
  of color.
 

Copyright 1998, John McFarland
 
John McFarland was born, raised and educated in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He'd probably still be there if he hadn't left for Bolivia to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer. His work has been published everywhere from Cricket Magazine  to The Badboy Book of Erotic Poetry.  He lives in Seattle, Washington.

Switched-on Gutenberg  Thematic Contents / Vol. 3, No. 2  Back / Forward