PAD Day 4: Necklace of Thorns

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Pick a painter and make his or her name the title of the poem, and (2) write a "sad" poem, but use simple language that avoids the emotional.  Here is the painting I used for inspiration today:

And here is the poem:

Frida Kahlo (con Collar de Espinas)

Her trademark brow is knit

as she glares from the canvas

in a traditional white dress.

Moths rest atop her braided hair.

A monkey, gift of her estranged husband,

fiddles indifferently on her one shoulder,

while a black cat that perhaps

just crossed behind her

peers over the other.

But the most striking part

is the necklace -

dead branches with thorns,

drawing beads of blood down

her neck, and a hummingbird

hung from the middle, sacrificed,

its rapid wings and heart stilled forever.