David Fine
They thought I was a surrealist, but I wasn't.
I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality.
- Frida Kahlo
In academic circles,
individuals
speak of the self—the
unencumbered, the inauthentic.
Descartes founded the modern
self, dislocated it (or
was that Copernicus?)
and wrapped it in skin.
I entered the world breech,
resisted separation.
Postmodern women pierce their navels,
filling the vacant core
with bling, bling. I hunger
after their breasts, long to crawl
up, in, further and farthest;
we make an in-utero bed,
curl up with a placental pillow, secure
in umbilical umbrage.
My hollow navel calls out,
howling emptiness yearning for fusion.