Terrance Hayes - Diego Rivera—Dama de Blanco, 1939
Cobwebs & mandrake. Bride holding the skull of her husband. When Diego said, Where is the gown you wore at the wedding, she wept pulling it from a trunk. But it was the color he wanted. The white of skirts on flower vendors. Of calla lilies. She knows Diego makes love to all the women he paints, even Frida's sister. (What color is the line between greed & passion?) When Diego asks, will she lift the gown & sprawl like a puddle of light, the brush dragging a silver trail along her thigh? Will the skull rolling into the hall sound like a moaning man? This afternoon in the museum, among cobwebs & a plant that screams when pulled from the ground, she smiles as if her secret is a good one. This we learn is howto be a bride with no husband, how to hold a skull upon the lap like a purse of freedom. In 1939, she smiles at Diego, his gut large enough to hold a harem of skulls, a woman-sized fetus. (She has seen Frida walking to the market in his shadow.) Her smile is a wall rising out of his colors, beauty he swallows then returns, ruins then restores ...
This is an ekphrastic piece by Terrance Hayes from his 2002 collection Hip Logic. Ekphrastic poems describe (and build on) a piece of visual art. His work has a rhythm that is usually much more pronounced and calls back to the lyrical. This is a different piece. However, it is simultaneously raw and symbolic, a Hayes staple. It tackles society through familiar figures and feels like an intimate conversation and a performance at once.
For reference, this is the titular painting by Rivera.
This poem is a single stanza. The block of text is slightly overwhelming when you first look at it, with its italicized text, parentheticals and ampersands before it was cool to use ampersands. It develops a tension in the reader that previews the tension of the content itself.
The ekphrastic (literally: description) part is reserved for the first line and a half. Hayes posits the woman is holding the skull of her husband. He uses her trauma to present Diego's coldness. His distance from humanity in pursuit of his art. This is at the center of this piece: the way that an artist uses pain perversely to craft his beauty. There is a subtle and masterful criticism of artists in this poem.
It’s worth noting that Diego Rivera was an absolute piece of shit. He is actually quoted as saying something to the effect of “the more I love a woman, the more I want to hurt her.” But let’s ignore that aspect, and instead study the speaker’s use of Diego as a vehicle for the poem.
“But it was the color he wanted” highlights the selfish nature of art and the way it can ignore the pain of its subject in exchange for the beauty it hopes to achieve. White carries a duality here — it is pure from the perspective of the wedding gown but also symbolizes death through the calla lilies. The line “Diego makes love to all the women he paints” is isolated and feels threatening, despite the polite euphemism “makes love.” It feels like the speaker is talking about these women being used by the artist as a cost for the art.
The speaker references Rivera’s relationship with Frieda Kahlo’s sister to show how deplorable a man he was. Diego was in a relationship with Kahlo when he began to sleep with her sister (and many other women). But this reference is really to set up the concept of the parenthetical. We are supposed to consider “the line between greed & passion” in all its aspects. In art, we are being asked to consider the perversion of turning pain and abuse into beauty that is revered and emulated. In life, we are being encouraged to consider the difference between what is expected and what is hoped for, and how that might impact the people involved in the interaction. “When Diego asks, will she lift the gown & sprawl like a puddle of light” and does she have a choice in exchange for being granted immortality through artistic genius?
“This we learn is how to be a bride with no husband, how to hold a skull upon the lap like a purse of freedom.” The tone of this line is not positive but instead one resigned to reality. This is the cost that she has chosen to pay. This is the cost we all pay for beauty. It isn’t that we make sense of our suffering and find beauty or growth in that struggle. It is that we suffer so that we may experience that beauty. “She smiles as if her secret is a good one.” Note the as if. The way the line hinges on that as if. Her smile is based in her delusions, because those delusions are necessary to reach whatever comes at the end of the struggle.
“A harem of skulls, a woman-sized fetus” again speaks to the price exacted. Harm is required to create. Skulls precede the fetus. The harem of skulls is very clear in its implication that women suffer more often. There is another piece in this collection Hayes has another poem in his first collection Muscular Music that explores a similar topic through the refrain “Miles Davis beat his wife.” The overlap is not accidental. Hayes wants us to ask questions about the price of our art, specifically the price exacted on women.
“Beauty he swallows then returns, ruins then restores…” leaves all ambiguity behind and lays out the meaning directly. As an artist, you are looking for fuel for your art. Often that fuel is a powerful emotion. Even more often, that powerful emotion is negative. The artist sustains themselves on this morbid appetite for the pain they’ve experienced and the pain they’ve inflicted. The painting and the poem are like the mandrake: screaming as they are plucked from the place of their birth. And we must acknowledge that the art is in fact beautiful, but we are left with ourselves there in the ellipses to wonder whether it is worth it.