La Casa Azul, by Jane Frank

La Casa Azul
after photographs of Frida Kahlo in her garden 
 
Born from prickly pear, I am. 
My seeds were cobalt — cacti mixed 
with yucca, agave, canna-lily, the 
bougainvillea crown of deep thorny 
pink from which pain sprouted.
 
Selfies grew from blackbird brows, 
rouged skin bled into terracotta, 
mustard, leaf-green dappled basalt 
walls and slabs of raw volcanic rock
that make up a central courtyard 
 
surrounded by the rooms of me —  
my eyes weeping shells. Mosaics 
that spell my name in a kitchen of 
turgid fruits; the glass ceiling 
makes sense of my brokenness.
 
My bathroom a cell of fashionista 
loot: red leather boot with leg, bows, 
bells, lace resplandors, embroidered 
Chinese silks, cool Tehuana huipils, 
enagua underskirts peeking polka dots.
 
My gallery of ex-votos, the re-runs of 
tragedy on trolley–buses that crawl 
like tin creepers over textured walls 
while those painted corsets of misery 
sit propped in folk art corners. 
 
My library of botany, tiny bouquets 
pressed in chartreuse leaves. A 
domestic oasis of portraits, plants, 
people, parrots — spider monkeys 
scaling the pyramid or my shoulder,
 
my deer, my pack of dogs cavorting 
among pomegranate boughs and 
succulents, my meandering pathways 
of paint — the comfort and pain of 
home and his betrayal mixed plein air.
 
The white crocheted bed where I 
assign the colours — soaring Aztec pink 
green sadness, yellow madness, cut
red melon death flesh, that sweet 
electricity of my deep blue tender fire

Jane Frank

Jane Frank’s latest chapbook is Wide River (Calanthe Press, 2020). Her work has most recently appeared in The Blue Nib, StylusLit, Grieve (Hunter Writers Centre, 2020), The Poets’ Republic and Cicerone Journal. Poems are also forthcoming in Meridian and Other Terrain Journal. In 2020 she was shortlisted for both the Thomas Shapcott and Wigtown Poetry Prizes, and in 2019, was joint winner of the Philip Bacon Ekphrasis Award.