The Birth Canal

In a haze, she sees her dead child
stand beside her iron bed, linked
to her by a tube; in the same instant,
Frida feels her heart lifted
from her, ticking
and dripping, still attached
to her body by threads,
several flowering veins. She mixes
the perfect shades of red, maroon,
blue to record to blood,

then finds colors to portray herself 
wearing a simple starched dress
of thin linen, purest white, not
a drop of blood on her dress,
not one blue-black hair on her head 
out of place. She stares out at us
from the scene as real to her
as the blood that drips from the left-hand
corner of the frame onto the floor.
The nightmare has passed, she whispers,
smiling—this is a painting.