1932: In Detroit, Michigan, attended by Dr. Pratt of Henry Ford Hospital for second pregnancy (four months) with spontaneous abortion despite bed rest and various treatments. Trophic ulcer continues to worsen.
1934: Third pregnancy. At three months abortion performed by Dr. Zollinger in Mexico. Exploratory laparotomy showed undeveloped ovaries. Appendectomy. First operation on right foot: excision of five phalanges. Extremely slow healing.
1935: Second operation on right foot, finding several sesamoids. Healing equally slow. Lasts nearly six months.
1936: Third operation on right foot. From that time on: extreme nervousness, fatigue in backbone with alternating periods of improvement.
1938: Consults specialists in bones, nerves and skin in New York. Dr. Glusker succeeds in healing trophic
ulcer with electrical and other treatments.
1939: Paris, France. Renal colobacteriosis with high fever. Continued backbone fatigue. Ingests great quantities of alcohol. At the end of this year has acute pain in backbone. Attended in Mexico by Dr. Farill, who orders absolute bed rest with twenty kilogram weight to stretch spine. Several specialists visit and all advise Albee operation: Dr. Albee himself advises same by letter. Dr. Marin and Eloesser oppose this. Fungus infection appears on fingers of right hand.
1940: Moves to San Francisco, California. Treated by Dr. Eloesser: absolute rest, very nutritious food, no alcohol, electrotherapy, calcium therapy. Slightly better, again lives more or less normal life.
1941: Again experiences exhaustion, with continuous weakness in back, violent pain in extremities. Weight loss, debility, menstrual irregularity.
1944: These years show significant increase in tiredness, backbone and right-leg pain. Seen by Dr. Zimbron, who orders absolute bed rest, steel corset which at first makes for more comfort but without stopping pain. When corset occasionally removed, feels lack of support as though unable to support herself. Complete lack of appetite continues with rapid weight loss. Weakness, nausea; ordered to bed, evening fever. Patient’s state continues worsening. Dr. Zimbron repeats analysis and x-ray, lumbar tap with lipoidal injection (third time). Reaches conclusion that she should be given a laminectomy and spinal graft. Eye examination shows papillary hypoplasia.
1945: Again made to wear plaster corset. Can be stood for only a few days because of intense pain in backbone and leg. In the three cerebrospinal taps there were lipoidal injections which were not eliminated: caused higher than normal cranial tension, continued pain in back of neck and spinal column, generally dull but stronger during nervous excitement. General state: exhaustion.
1946: Dr. Glusker advises patient to go to New York to see Dr. Philip Wilson, surgeon specializing in spinal operations. Leaves for New York in May. Carefully examined by Dr. Wilson and neurology specialists who consider spinal fusion necessary and urgent. Performed by Dr. Wilson in June this year. Four lumbar vertebrae fused with pelvis graft and fifteen-centimeter long vitalium plate; bed rest for three months. Patient recovers. Advised to wear special steel corset for eight months, lead calm, restful life. Obvious improvement noted for first three months after operation, after which patient cannot follow Dr. Wilson’s orders. Then not convalescing in due form, life filled with nervous agitation, little rest. Feels same fatigue as before, aching neck and backbone, debility, weight loss. Macrocytic anemia. Fungus again appears on right hand.
ACCIDENT
Nevertheless I have the will to do many things
and I have never felt “disappointed by life”
as in Russian novels.
The Hours Were Broken Divorce
“the stitches do not heal over and the wound does not look as if it is closing.”
Cut your hair and watch it fall. Into a circle, desolation. The hair, retaliation rage, wear a man’s suit your tears are nails, and a lock of hair is falling, falling, between your legs the scissors resting there, the hair which he adored.
Let the scissors enter the body. Let the two Fridas, hair everywhere, hair everywhere liar, liar, why hair in the rungs of the—yellow for madness or sickness or fear—
the yellow chair … Outside severed rest there.
And she paints in rage and sorrow fury. And she paints some say the greatest of her paintings Diego Diego
House for birds
Nests for love
All for nothing
I sell it all for nothing
Cropped Hair
Now that you don’t love me—
divorce — the legs dancing away from the rest of the body.
She watched other people dance.
There’s no escaping the monkey’s paw thorny barbaric yawl
her heart is a fountain its severed valves pump misericorda
the lacerated Mexican saint,
all the martyred ones.
What the water gave you finally
What the pain
You so far over there now paint. The table is wounded. Its legs flayed maimed paint. See how Judas’s chest and right foot are bleeding: and the skeleton has a broken right foot. Over, broken utterly alone, and she paints her death in lavender and the plants that will sprout on her grave. And that skeleton there grinning on the canopy of her bed.
votive: oblivion
Diego, Diego
Ven.
Come to me
Bride tonight
She paints herself, friends, companions, nieces, pets. Desperate no children Diego no, not that anything but she paints: on that desolate soulscape—
The blood red ribbon uniting her and the paint and the pain
and the world in which
She is walking down a dirt road alone
Diego
the heart
the lock
cut look if I loved you it was for your hair
ring
crow feather swallow
the fetus floating in a bottle
The lock of hair, the ring, the song, the hope (, mother) put it
in a box,
the love we had the dreams the child.
one side and the other
the ether rising, the smell of formaldehyde
the locket Diego
now that your hair is cropped short I do not love you anymore
the heart — extract it
the pain, isolate it
when it gets too much
Cristina
when it gets too much
the ribbons from her hair
the dreaming head
fevered
put the dream in the box put the fever, put the—other people dance—sorrow put the talons—Bonito—
in another place.
the image.
And the one you adored
put the crimson in the white box
sparrows in a jar
put the tears put the river Papa
put the hurt on one side and the corset (Cristina why?)
the gradual falling apart.
put the empty clothing