by Terri Kirby Erickson
My Frida Kahlo keychain, a gift from a longtime
friend in Lubbock, is made of felt, hand-embroidered
with the brightest threads. Her pink floral headdress
is rainbow-shaped, her eyebrows like a minimalist
painting of a bird in flight—one solid line, double-
arched, meeting in the center of her forehead. With
eyes forever closed, this keychain Frida is always
smiling. She never had polio or walked with a limp.
Her spine and pelvis were never broken, her uterus
never pierced by an iron bar. In fact, she has no body,
only a lime-green tassel where her neck should be.
To her, Diego is just a name, not a faithless husband,
no one to whom her tortured letters were addressed.
Hanging from a set of keys, she cannot know the fate
of brown-skinned immigrants gathered like herds
of cattle, handcuffed and transported, the families who
may not find each other again, the crying babies, their
stolen mothers. Keychain Frida has no arms to paint
their pain in vibrant colors—a small portrait of herself
in the corner of the canvas, boldly staring, her blood-
red heart dangling between her breasts like a pendant.
friend in Lubbock, is made of felt, hand-embroidered
with the brightest threads. Her pink floral headdress
is rainbow-shaped, her eyebrows like a minimalist
painting of a bird in flight—one solid line, double-
arched, meeting in the center of her forehead. With
eyes forever closed, this keychain Frida is always
smiling. She never had polio or walked with a limp.
Her spine and pelvis were never broken, her uterus
never pierced by an iron bar. In fact, she has no body,
only a lime-green tassel where her neck should be.
To her, Diego is just a name, not a faithless husband,
no one to whom her tortured letters were addressed.
Hanging from a set of keys, she cannot know the fate
of brown-skinned immigrants gathered like herds
of cattle, handcuffed and transported, the families who
may not find each other again, the crying babies, their
stolen mothers. Keychain Frida has no arms to paint
their pain in vibrant colors—a small portrait of herself
in the corner of the canvas, boldly staring, her blood-
red heart dangling between her breasts like a pendant.
Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of seven full-length collections of award-winning poetry. Her work has appeared in “American Life in Poetry,” Latin American Literary Review, ONE ART, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Rattle, The SUN, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and many other literary journals, magazines, newspapers, and anthologies. Among her numerous awards are the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, International Book Award for Poetry, and the Annals of Internal Medicine Poetry Prize. She lives in North Carolina, USA.
