Casa Azul

by Allie Rowbottom | 2008

This will be a radical love she tells me
She takes my hand
Her dress is blue
Her sandals, yellow.

I nestle my nose into her hair
Sweat and sagebrush
This is all I want.

Mexico City
The streets are full of dust
It clings to our clothing
It folds into the creases of our eyelids
Our nostrils
The space between our toes

Later that night
I sit behind her on a wide feather bed
I unzip her blue dress
I slip off her sandals

Here, she says.
She points to her shoulder
Her eyelid
Her knee

Are you my lover?
Here in Ciudad de Mexico, you are
Here in the home of the Casa Azul
With the cacti and La Calavera de la Catrina
Here where my hand fits so perfectly inside you

Walking through the Museo Frida
We saw the pages of her diary
Laid out under glass
Contained as they shouldn’t be
And yet, her shapes remain
Symmetrical, each piece into another
Triangulated into one another

Two little girls
Two shapes into one
The blue and yellow, a circle, a teacher
The green and growing, an oblisk, a pupil
Captivated by her color
By the deep crevices I curl into
Wishing never to leave

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