Broken Antler Magazine: Chronic Pain as Poacher

Frida Kahlo, Venadito, 1946 oil on masonite

First published in Issue 1 October, 2023 in Broken Antler Magazine.

Chronic Pain as Poacher 

after Frida Kahlo – Venadito 

He runs 
through the trees, hollow-trunked and ghostly, branches snapping 
jagged in the storm. They cover his sound. Blue skies, but lightning 
crackles anyway. The humidity holds him like a pocket, and the clean smell 
of electric is wet with her scent:
A perfume of palm, monkeys, and lace.
Her tracks zig zag like stitches along the skin
of the earth. Each hoof pressed like two fingers 
rutting the ground. He hears her heartbeat now,
he's getting closer. It thumps like a corrido between
iron ribs, he feels like dancing. What will it mean to 
possess this chimerical miracle? He’s hungry for her
alchemy. He still hasn’t seen her. A big branch breaks
and his neck turns with a snap, he spies gold glinting
from a doubled ear. The bow is already nocked with 
ten waiting arrows. The arch slackens and a shower 
of missiles dive. She darts. The first misses her head, 
but the next nine fall in wounding rank. Poor little meat. But she keeps going, brittle legs 
limping. Now the rain falls fat and salty like so many tears. Death catches 
even the 
quickest.