Karen George
Frida Kahlo’s My Nurse and I, 1937
I.
Infant with an adult head, held loosely, near falling from a wet nurse’s arms—face covered by a dark mask, a grimace. Lush foliage reaches her shoulders.
Sky of raindrops mirrors two pearls of milk leaking like teardrops from the right breast. The left a translucent network, clusters of milk beads—tiny gold flowers.
Frida stares into space, empty. Doesn’t suckle. The milk, dry stems, jabs her open mouth. Any minute she will choke.
II.
I open my mother’s door, hold my breath. Her dread rivets me. She whimpers, tells me she dreamt the Book of Reckoning. Shows me how God’s finger trailed down the page of all her sins. Says He revoked her voice, memory, control of her breathing.
Nothing I say penetrates. My throat throttled.
Karen George is author of five chapbooks, and two collections from Dos Madres Press: Swim Your Way Back (2014) and A Map and One Year (2018). Her work appears in Adirondack Review, South Dakota Review, Ekphrastic Review, Louisville Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Naugatuck River Review. Her website is: https://karenlgeorge.blogspot.com/.