Julieta Corpus’ most recent poem to appear here was “O’Keeffe: Intimacies of the Heart” (July 2016).
Frida Kahlo’s Leg
By Julieta Corpus
Loving hands submerge me
Into a small tub filled
With warm, walnut water.
Her mother’s home remedy
For polio, a temporary salve
Staving off flesh pried open
To reveal a fiery canal
Of molten lava.
Only six years old, and I have
Already betrayed her. Forty-one
Years later, I will do it again.
They will
amputate
Mutilate
Separate
Me from the rest of her body.
Pies, para qué los quiero si tengo
Alas para volar?
Have always been fascinated by Frida Kahlo–as I am by your poem. She would have approved.
Thank yoymu! She has fascinated ne for years—I even have a 4 foot ceramic Catrina of her, complete with a colorful bird on one shoulder and a monkey on the other!
poignant