To Frida
 
Do you too paint calla lilies
     their white cowls opening
     to flagrant spikes of inflorescence
             smeared yellow with pollen
 and to the applause of green leaves
             abundance carried by dark
             people crowding forward
             threatening to exit the canvas?
Do you too paint workers bent over metal
   wheels, levers, and conveyer belts
             manufacturing part after part
             deaf in the rattle and whir
             nameless in the steel
             intestines of a crowded canvas?
Does big Diego have any breath left
             after he climbs the stairs
    walks the veranda to your room?
Does his stomach rumble
    as he settles himself above you?
Do you lie still on the flat surface
   as the peony of his sex
   startles the gray air?
Or, kept rigid by the board
            supporting your back
   do you shift wing to wing
   a shipwrecked angel roped
            to a lucky find of flotsam?
After he touches you, does he close
   the shutters heavily hinged
   on landscape after landscape?
 

Copyright 1998, Ann Spiers
 
Ann Spiers’ collections of poems include The Herodotus Poems (Brooding Heron, 1989) and Tide Turn (May Day Press, 1996).  She co-founded The Seattle Review, teaches creative writing, and writes freelance magazine and newspaper articles.

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