Self-Portrait as Frida Kahlo with Prickly Pear
Betsy Mitchell Martinez
The first time I broke, a stranger
showered me with gold dust. My clothes
combusted. I glowed in the street, pinned
in a stopped clock of rapture, vibrant
with adrenaline and noise. Like a dog,
I return there to sleep, burying my nose
in yards of gauze. I paint each strip
with fleas, each jaw a kiss, the bodies
fat as memory. In the morning, I grind them
to pigment. One mystery is how
the cactus outside my window sheds its green
like the skin of afternoon, unearthing
purple hollows, spikes silver
in a wash of sun. If I cup my hands
on the glass and breathe, I can draw
a door and open it, walk out to that nopal,
break fruit from its paddles. I lean
on the blue wall of horizon,
rubbing spines in the dirt with the tip
of my shoe, twining my arms in
bougainvillea. Can you feel that twist
of nerve, the way I’m always stepping through
this window, pricking my fingers on the bright
lie of a vanishing point? I peel the fruit
with a sharp corner of my fingernail.
When I bite down, it stains the air.
About this poem: When my daughter was in preschool, she became obsessed with Frida Kahlo. We read Frida books daily, and I often had to modify or omit portions of the books to make them suitable for a 3-year-old audience. Even with the modifications, we had a lot of surprising conversations about physical pain (e.g., what does “wounded” mean? what is amputation?), mental pain (why was Frida sad?), and art (why does Frida paint herself crying?). I found myself thinking about these things after my daughter went to bed, and I began to write poems, sometimes in Frida’s imagined voice, to explore the connections between pain and art.
Three poems by Betsy Mitchell Martinez, including “Self-Portrait as Frida Kahlo with Prickly Pear,” were selected for the Shō Poetry Prize for Shō No. 8. Betsy’s poems “Girl with Death Mask” and “Diego Weighs in on Quality” appear in Shō No 8.
Read about the Shō Poetry Prize here, or view past recipients and honorees.
Betsy Mitchell Martinez holds an MFA from the University of Michigan. Her recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Rattle, New Letters, Shenandoah, Washington Square Review, Southeast Review, Redivider, EPOCH, and elsewhere.
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