VIEW WITH PORTRAIT OF FRIDA KAHLO
November, the avenues bare.
Wind like sheets of steel, shore willows hard against it.
Equipment in the sky: cloud, sun, wind,
a few birds hanging on.
The river bucks like that last drink, the one you shouldn’t
have had,
the drone, pitch, clang, crash and slam of it.
Pressure from above and below.
Air and obstruction, constriction, gradient, flow.
Walking or standing, it’s the same thing.
Out there the waves are assembling the face of Frida Kahlo:
her surging brow, the fathomless eyes, the dark fathoms
around them,
quick down-strokes either side of the nose, the sweet
flourish that curls to the nostrils, those racing caverns,
not to mention
the dent above the flush of mouth, knife-edge
of closed lips, the tiny cleft in her chin.
The whole vast tropic
bursting with white flowers.
A line of froth slashes her brow.
Go back to bed, the river says.
The wind abates, but her features persist.
Funny way to show you what you need.
Susan Gillis, from Twenty View of the Lachine Rapids (Gaspereau Press, 2012) and The Rapids (Brick Books, 2012)
Image, "her surging brow" by Klaus Pfeiffer
Image, "her surging brow" by Klaus Pfeiffer