Frida Kahlo likes to walk in colour,
but she is hard-pushed on Society Street.
We wander together up Sarsfield Road;
‘Where is all the yellow,’ she asks, ‘the red?
Frida, in a floral dress and Mexican silver,
draws a tidings of magpies from the sky.
‘No parrots,’ she says, ‘no hibiscus?’
Clouds part, a triangle of blue pleases her.
Then she sees a scarlet Massey Ferguson,
yew berries spilled like beads on the footpath,
A woman in a crimson coat and a man’s shoes,
a King Charles with a postcard colleen’s curls,
Tail-lights like alien eyes spinning to Ahascragh;
‘Viva la vida,’ says unflinching Frida, painter of pain.
She sings the reds of Sarsfield Road and they bleed
into the veins of the town, pulsing its grey.
