T(w)o Frida(s)/ Hunardeep Kaur/ Issue 02

The hummingbird that you painted long ago

Still hangs like dead weight 

On the thorn necklace that has tightened its grip

It hangs there, dead yet alive

Weighing down on the heaving breasts

Today as it was the other day

The table is still wounded,

The blood still drips 

Reeking of discord, disjunction, desperation…

The wounded deer still haunts the deadened forest

The magnolias are still in half-bloom,

In a limbo between life and death

And we are still thinking of death

With crossbones imprinted on our foreheads

We are still surrounded by turbulent skies

Like the Two Fridas,

We bleed and yet hold onto ourselves

The other side of ourselves…

Oh! That you could speak of pain without speaking,

That you could create life and death 

And everything in between

That you could fill in the empty spaces with yourself

That you could claim your body as your own

And paint yourself 

That you could make the coconuts cry 

And watermelons sing ‘Viva la Vida’

That you could make life cry 

That you could laugh in the face of death

Oh! Frida! Art thou at liberty?

Is death fairer than life?

Should we let the watermelons sing

‘Viva la Vida’?

The Two Fridas, Frida Kahlo, Oil on canvas, 1939

Hunardeep Kaur is a student of English Literature at Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi.