Viva la Vida Watermelons by Frida Kahlo

If watermelons could pose, they might look like these:

Seven, 2 uncut, 1 resting on its side, 1 bottom side up

5 cut, 1 sliced in half, 1 sliced in half with fringed edges

1 quartered flat, 1 quartered on edge, 1 with a tiny slice removed.

What do you suppose it means?

Is it like Cezanne’s idea of “Still Life”

the way pigments might capture some inanimate

objects making them real or just beautiful?

The artist was a clever but contentious woman

out of pain so maybe she had something else

up her sleeve. Red and green are complementary

colors which does not mean they are in harmony

with one another but rather that they are directly

opposite one another on the color spectrum

so to mix them in a fruit so very red and green

might imply the idea of conflict.

On the foremost watermelon she inscribed

the title of her painting “Viva La Vida, Sandias”

meaning “long live life, watermelons,” her name

the date, 1954, and her bohemian neighborhood

Coyoacan, Mexico, where she lived.

It could be that this was a way to mark her creation

or a way to compare herself to that cold ripe sweet

red juicy delicious fruit.