Confessional
Frida Kahlo is painting me meditating. Blood-red hibiscus in my hair. My hard stare.
Dogwood blossom crawling out of my heart, rust-stained despite tender crown.
Gardenia behind me, fragrant white, shiny green leaf, two toucans who sing.
Look at my traditional gringa prom dress: strapless!
Through the window, the Victorian house next door turns Mexican bungalow
white in the sun. This is what it's like to be en casa in Eden:
A man pours ceramic tile into sand, later enamels it blue and gold by hand.
Coral prisms light a cathedral and nearby simmers a turquoise sea.
Frida Kahlo is painting me making conscious contact with the divine.
Bracelets jangle on her birdlike wrist as brush taps palette.
Eyebrow, a cedilla in siesta. Fringe of her shawl
trawling pigment. I want to say Cuidado, but I converse with
another who knows it is January in New York, snow upon ice
packed like an Arctic sample cherished by geologists. I am done
with winter. Frida, teach me a folk song. Her brow awakes
and laughter erupts from her mouth in rows of Gulf clouds.
– ann cefola