Zombie: Self Portrait with Frida Kahlo

i.
It walks over streets that
centuries are made of, up
escalators of the underground
down hills that spill out
Lewisham, in a body it
inhabited for decades, but
left for holidays, a winter
coat worn out of season.

ii.
And through crosswalks,
dazed and slack-jawed,
hanging right outside
itself like a package half
stuck in a mail slot -– it
moves along the granite
walls of the Tate
whose rooms bleed
the blood of La Mestiza,
each frame contains
a mirror, reflects dissection.

iii.
It carries itself through
the foyer into rooms that
call to it like night
children afraid in their beds.
At the threshold of self-
portraits, its flesh
shifts to make room
for an unseen that passes
through it – its body
a doorway, a ship
that holds the transient
one who holds her heart
seeping like squeezed
cheesecloth outside
of her chest, claws
the eyes of those who gaze
until they bleed
saltwater from the ducts
of their unconscious.

iv.
At the doorway
of Identity & Nationalities,
it becomes an island
where its limbs fall away
and drift into the open
space around what it
once was, contained,
disemboweled by
the transient’s brush.