Frida 4 !

She places the gray rectangle of shadow
above her chin, delicately as a name card
at a dinner setting. It is a simple truth –
that the sun's angle would darken this pattern -

a math she calculates steadily, the way
she pulls silver through her earlobes.

This face invents her –
From it the audience can guess
of her spine, of her hips and wide toes -
It is a face that she’s chosen, a freedom
Known only to painters, to poets and creators.

She sits potted
before the mirror, tracing
over and over, her own contours
until the whole thing is blurred
and strange. Until it is time to reinvent
each line. She paints
the endless Mexican desert
behind her pupils. She sculpts her chin,
purses the red tin of her lips.


As she works she imagines
tomorrow’s costume, the piles
of color that beg her to let them fall
over her frame at a party,
that want their weight draped around her ankles
that want to hide her whole thing
behind a shadowless, shapeless yellow.