Frida Poem

Beth Camp, history writer and teacher from Oregan, made contact to ask if she could use my portrait of Frida Kahlo on her Blog, to accompany her poem…

In return, I asked if I could put her poem on my Blog:

Imagine Frida Kahlo at the 7-11,
in that hour before the stars reveal themselves.
She just stands there, checking out
cold rows of Dos Equis in the cooler,
the blistered pizza barely warm,
clicking her red fingernails on a torn Lotto ticket,
glancing out the back window at
a weather-worn, red wheelbarrow on the patio,
bristling with mariposas and frangipani,
barely visible on some warm, summer night.

She would come into that space, trailing incense;
her earrings dangle to her shoulders,
jasmine flowers in her hair.
Her swirling long skirts cover a limp,
her fingers marked with blue and green
and yellow oil paint,
her wide, red lips and dark eyebrows,
dangerous and seditious. Revolutionary.
Her sorrows fall away in jolting lines of colour.

bluebethley@yahoo.com