Frida, by Robert Walicki

Frida's Leg, by Lorette C. Luzaijc (Canada), 2016.

Frida

On canvas skin, she tattoos herself,
pulls down the zipper in the centre
of her chest to show bone,

rods of steel from the car accident,
La Columna Rota  a Calzada de Tlapan.
Still life with bus ride and shrapnel,

At The Pallacio de Bellas Artes,
walls are full of blood, rinds of watermelon
spilled of  its seeds.

30,000 pieces of Frida behind glass
X-rays of her fractured back,

a ripped bus ticket, the ghost of my fingerprints
on glass, a No Tocar, Do Not Touch in Spanish.

They hang your blood on the wall, and we gawk,
the heart unravelling, scissors in your hand
to hold back the flow.
​
Robert Walicki

Robert Walicki's work has appeared in over 40 publications including Vox Populi, Stone Highway Review, The Kentucky Review, Red River Review, and others. A Pushcart and a Best of The Net nominee, Robert currently has two chapbooks published: A Room Full of Trees (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014) and The Almost Sound of Snow Falling (Night Ballet Press), which was nominated to the 2016 Poet’s House List of Books in NYC.

The Broken Column, by Frida Kahlo (Mexico), 1944.