Frida to Diego
 
I write to tell you I’ve been living in your eye
floating there, suspended in its warm thick oil
like a bobber or a breast.
I swim in circles, dream of cork and eels.

I’ve been inked by you
a cold white scar.
One who cannot see herself but remembers gaping red
hair spilled like blood around me
knees blue with fear.
My other accident
a hurricane
the great purple war of us.

Afloat, I drink your eye
want to swallow it whole
spin it in my womb
cover it with the odorless membrane of me--
I’ll hook it to my veins
slung directly from my heart
so you can see for certain that you’re killing me.

And when the day does come when I’m not living dying, but I’m done
dress me up for paradise
and wheel me to the hearth.
You need not light a fire
but turn and face my rage.
I’ll sit to greet the oven
and emerge a crust
a cactus, ashen beetle.
For a single moment the sun will shine up
instead of down
and I, at last
will be as hairless as the moon’s cold stare.

Finally, my love
after dusting your lips with my residue,
turn my spoils into paint.
Cement me in an everlasting portrait—
mouth open
head back
eye gaping from my throat.
 

Copyright 1998, Tara Hardy

Tara Hardy has worked in the Battered Women’s Movement for  twelve years.  She lives in Seattle and studies writing at the University of Washington.

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