Wendy Vardaman
My daughter asks about suffering
Do ordinary people live like
that? she asks. I know only
the basic story,
its bones, but
must
ad-
mit, paying
bills and balancing
the check book have occupied
my mind while we watched Frieda Kahlo's
life on documentary. My own
back seized up yesterday lift-
ing weight. I can still
feel the thick
ache
down
my left side
despite a handful
of ibuprofen and the
heating pad. Probably stress. Parents'
visit--my father for the first time
in years, cleaning the house, their
arguments, his legs,
swollen to twice
their
size:
a sign of
heart or liver or
kidney failure, but he won't
keep his appointments with the doctor
or own up to how much he drinks. Still
it's the need to order the
monthly accounts, note
each item
in
my
fat spiral,
and tally up the
totals that fills me, prevents
my looking up for more than moments
to glimpse the paintings--Frieda as pin
cushion, Frieda weeping blood,
Frieda and the jarred
fetus. Frie-
da
all
ways, every
moment of her life
soaked with pain and paint. At the
end, rolled toward the crematorium's
fire, she sat up straight--black hair blazing--
to get one last look at each
terrified face left
back: sisters,
friends,
faith-
less husband;
something to use on
the other side, something to
remember painting in paradise.
Black Sunday, 1935
Lie next to me, Mother--duck your head. I--
watch out!--the horses are sliding from the sky--
out of the ceiling--down and around. Why
don't you duck when they charge by?
Mother--she played along--I'd say,
Now! There's another, and she'd sway
to one side or other, out of the way.
I was small and sick, but remember that day.
Then after we'd caged and clubbed the rabbits
that came down desperate from the high hills to look
for what we hadn't had for years--a cloud--thick
and black--bigger than anything we'd seen before took
hold of the sky. Daddy grabbed us and we
wondered: what had we done? Our neighbor shook
next to us and cried and said we'd all surely
die now. But Daddy said, No. I know what the Book
says--well as you--and it's not the end yet.
Pull yourself together. Help me get
these kids home safe to their mothers.
I'll bumper you back, he screamed above the weather.
Our lungs and mouths--always full of grit--
we heaved up mud clods when we tried to spit.
My youngest brother got pneumonia--he died of it
and the measles I brought home. I can't forget
my mother--the way she screamed--the way she changed--
I'm sorry--it's just--she was never the same.
Pinched Pipes
Two
weeks'
clogs:
our
unkempt house
overstuffed,
the jammed hall
at Suzuki school--
each arm bearing
a stiff, bulging
bag, my squeezed
tight back--ribs slammed
against unyielding
iron with each pain
filled breath, rhythms
gone wrong, the squares
above our phone,
covered in un-
readable nonsense
and small crosses;
as frustrating
as spring cleaning
with the breathless
vacuum's corked hose,
belligerent
in your absence;
as mystifying
as the gauze thin
silk scarf caught
unrepentant
in his oboe
along a narrow
passage, through
which air should flow
unforced, like lines
that say themselves
but won't with
you away.
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