"Frida Kahlo in Bed"

By Nancy J. Dunlop

At her most sick, her greatest hour, she
lies on her back in her bed, painting
everything she can reach, the length
of her paintbrush proclaiming
her mighty circumference: the canvas
rigged above her pelvis, the bed canopy's
underside billowing with color, her
fingernails, her eyes, her hair dotted with flowers, small
birds, her neck strewn with beads, flashes
of light and gleam, even
her body cast, molded to her spine: this too
she paints and brings to stirring life.
Viva la vida! Long live life! Visaged through
a haze of morphine, striving for
kisses, for more pure sex, glistening
sticky touch. Not going down
without a fight. A beautiful
fitful fight. "I am disintegration" she says.
And we say back "You are the strokes
of the brush that make
the world the world."

Poet and essayist Nancy J. Dunlop lives in the Albany, N.Y. area.