By Margaret Elysia Garcia
Leave Frida Alone
She never wanted to come back.
Pulled her into pillows and purses,
magnets and mousepads, baby dolls and shawls,
wrapping ourselves in that sanguine rebozo.
She a communist, atheist and we, the church bazaar
sell her: totes, tattoos and tees,
along with la Virgen and take
the knee-hi socks in the culture box litter with glitter: art history.
She burns: saint candle sanitized; baby boardbook Frida.
Make a wish to your muse of floral paintings and Mona Lisa smiles.
Soft-focus a fraying Frida, smooth her fraying threadbare edge.
Pretend she is not the pregnant potential of decay, of desire
and does not smell like cigarettes, missed meals
and rotted teeth, living off candy treats,
the swig of bedside whiskey,
living in rarely made beds and unswept floors
where the monkeys and the peacocks would have had to have gone.
Look, if Frida were alive today she would fuck your husband
(and your best girlfriend too—or even you)
because that’s exactly what the real Frida would do.
& I would laugh and laugh as you head-tilt question
Um, Ms. Kahlo, can I get an autograph?
Go on, you try and tell her she and Diego need better boundaries,
Couples’ therapy.
You’ve made her
doe-eyed pale, left the eyebrows;
erased her mustache.
Swaddle and constrict her in happy jungle prints and parrots. Take her
palette of vibrant sorrows; leave her alone with your role model tomorrows.
And where have you put her corsets and columns?
And the blood-dipped arrows of betrayal?
Is this what the water was to have brought her?
Frida’s dress hangs here in our polluted
gringolandia air. Those tethered truths still
floating above her in the ether of Ford Hospital.
Stillborn. Your constant commoditized snips
So very beneath her.
Problematic
She doesn’t use ‘Chicana’
a problematic term.
A jump rope chant:
Problematic. Problematic. Problematic.
Smile. It’s no time for an argument. Smile.
We are.
Safely Hispanic:
A bottled mild salsa sold at Walmart.
As palatable as Taco Bell & Cabo San Lucas vacations.
Easy rhythms and mainstream beats.
We are.
Hair and Nail Latinas.
See my bright colors and fiery temper.
Hear my rolled ‘r’s and rapture prayers.
But I am Chicana:
güera looks and history books. Just as
indigenous as you. Problematic like a
label. A checked box confidence. Are you a conquered people of Spain?
Are you in our statistics? Can you represent a people rather than yourself?
Up from nothing underdog. Ready for the fight.
A Western (Zoom Therapy Session)
Out of nowhere you came:
Counselor turned savior
riding up on your
black stallion
& your white couch diagnosis.
Savoring & saving me while your own house turns ambiguous gray.
speaking to me of oh the sessions we’ll have
& all that potential
deep bonds between us
where
Internet bandidos & bored house wives
plant themselves waiting
growth in artificial light.
Out of nowhere you came:
Just this side of intrigue,
I’ll-try-anything-twice
sliding into the pale fog of my noir
you were to be that smoky silver excess
of my aimless living.
Ah but sir,
I am no damsel in any unusual distress
just the daily dull living the need to talk and you
are not high noon on the horizon.
Your white noise no match for my resolve:
my broken, my driven, and your horse needs
water and rest. Kick the couch to the curb—
this woman belongs to no one
her gazes trails beyond you to her own
Technicolor sky.
Margaret Elysia Garcia is the author of the poetry collection the daughterland (El Martillo Press, 2023), of the short story collection Graft (Tolsun Books, 2022), and the poetry chapbook Burn Scars, (Lit Kit Collective, 2022). She writes a history column for High Country Life, a regional magazine covering the eastern Sierra Nevada. She’s the co-editor of Red Flag Warning anthology—a collection of essays on mutual aid and communities after wildfire to be published by AK Press in 2025.