After the September Accident in ’08, My mother sold her sister’s Little porcelain bathtub In a garage sale for $35. She never bought a new one. I saw that same Little porcelain bathtub At Frida Kahlo’s blue house Six years later. It was a gritty replica of Her original painting. It was a Little porcelain bathtub That held cinnamon legs and Gray water. Upon her Darkened shins were her Life’s memories – A skyscraper aflame in a Brewing volcano, a cracked toe Bleeding into the murk, a Drowned dress of yellow and Red (unable to be Revived), a skeleton sitting On a mound of dirt, dead Bird laid to rest atop the Gentle arms of an oak Tree, web of lemongrass plant Roots snaking across heavy Thighs, pubic-haired women Making love on a rugged Mattress. My, what a woman – To find refuge in a Little porcelain bathtub, To bleed the beauty and woes Of life onto gray water, To linger on past Memories until the skin Became a shriveled Raisin under the sun. Frida’s Little porcelain bathtub Held cinnamon legs and Gray water. I wish my aunt Josie’s Little porcelain bathtub Held the same Back in 2008. But, all we found it Held was ribboned legs And rose-colored water.
Melanie Romero, writer behind “Magdalena,” the ekphrastic poem inspired by Frida Kahlo’s “What the Water Gave Me” (“Lo Que El Agua Me Dio”)
