These are three poems I wrote based on reactions I had to the Frida Kahlo painting, "What the Water Gave Me."
Bounty
Cornucopia of memory, spilling across linen over hardwood
Rotten fruit stinks in the air, before scents lost
A bitter longing to remember faces fades to pale
A stubbed toe on the porcelain bleeds into the water
Her momentary safe-keep, the liquid milky pink; catharsis comes
Aztec pyramids side by side with skyscrapers; closer to clean
Women on women, children of children; they erupt
Spilling over her body’s linen
Bleach
Here there is a stain, where once there was an origin
Spiders crawl forth and reclaim the empty nest
The very thing which made me she
Copper stain on the linoleum, on the silk, on the grass
Where I have been, the stain has followed
Like a river during rainfall
Creeping higher, higher
I wonder when the flood will come
And drench me with its rust water
Día de los Muertos. Ash rains down
And my grey hair disintegrates when I touch it.
A skeleton bleached white by sun and heat
Even it had once been red.
Borderland
The home of my mothers, my fathers, my children
Where has it gone, where will I find it?
In Atlantis I search, through ruins, through oceans
I touch like a thief and it knows this
Scattered among the junk, I have found a memory
Dry-lipped petals give way to trampling stomp
Steel-toe boots and hard hats, destruction obediently follows
Snail trail slime follows in their wake
Here, once, there had been a home. Now, now
Cuckoos implant their alien eggs; the children claw at ribcages
Rabbits and flies, crops of sparse life
Pavement, window, hammer, nothing
A wrecking ball has burst through my mirror
I had looked into the eyes of my father and my future sons
Before the glass had splintered faces to shards
It pierces my face and I am torn.
Cornucopia of memory, spilling across linen over hardwood
Rotten fruit stinks in the air, before scents lost
A bitter longing to remember faces fades to pale
A stubbed toe on the porcelain bleeds into the water
Her momentary safe-keep, the liquid milky pink; catharsis comes
Aztec pyramids side by side with skyscrapers; closer to clean
Women on women, children of children; they erupt
Spilling over her body’s linen
Bleach
Here there is a stain, where once there was an origin
Spiders crawl forth and reclaim the empty nest
The very thing which made me she
Copper stain on the linoleum, on the silk, on the grass
Where I have been, the stain has followed
Like a river during rainfall
Creeping higher, higher
I wonder when the flood will come
And drench me with its rust water
Día de los Muertos. Ash rains down
And my grey hair disintegrates when I touch it.
A skeleton bleached white by sun and heat
Even it had once been red.
Borderland
The home of my mothers, my fathers, my children
Where has it gone, where will I find it?
In Atlantis I search, through ruins, through oceans
I touch like a thief and it knows this
Scattered among the junk, I have found a memory
Dry-lipped petals give way to trampling stomp
Steel-toe boots and hard hats, destruction obediently follows
Snail trail slime follows in their wake
Here, once, there had been a home. Now, now
Cuckoos implant their alien eggs; the children claw at ribcages
Rabbits and flies, crops of sparse life
Pavement, window, hammer, nothing
A wrecking ball has burst through my mirror
I had looked into the eyes of my father and my future sons
Before the glass had splintered faces to shards
It pierces my face and I am torn.
(all poems copyright Brittni Aislinn Reilly)
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