In Frida’s House

First Published in Broken Plate

Color lush tropical feral fertile
crowded green, stems, stalks
white flowers and blackish ferns,
over the wardrobe threshold

where the torture corsets lived;
leather and steel trap delicate flesh,
buckled and strangled in straightening
harnesses of medical dictation.

Hidden under indigenous costumes
of wonder with jewels layered
purposefully, painfully
and playfully over straps and snares.

Easels, and palettes and
rainbow brushes at ease now
in the studio before her
death mask and ashes.

Me with my illegal camera:
sir, I hadn’t planned on photographs...
I could not resist.

Laura Celise Lippman