My Mother as the Voice of Kahlo - Analicia Sotelo

[Larry Robinson]

My Mother as the Voice of Kahlo

I am fourteen & feeling ugly

looking at a unibrow
like the one I’d like to get rid of

when my mother says
Yes it’s supposed to be a bird
See she did it on purpose
See she didn’t care
what people thought of her
only what they were made of
which animals were inside & why
Here she’s a stag in mid-leap

with nine arrows in her body
alive bleeding

Her grief is constant & irreparable

like the crown of fresh flowers
she killed each day

See the instinct for painting is the instinct for power
Women don’t
choose work over love
but it’s not the same for men

See all men are in love with themselves

Like Diego & your father

& even an artist
will leave his wife behind

but he can’t if she runs harder
if she’s both hunter & sacrifice

	- Analicia Sotelo