Dora Maar

I knew it was over when he painted me in green

like a corpse.

I asked him why and he shrugged,

And with the movement of his great shoulders

He rendered me a carcass a second time.

I had bled through my gloves before, naïve

sanguine.

He laughed that I could only capture, and not create:

King of the Cubists, full of hubris and,

having a wife,

took me as a lover, pupil, friend.

He became my living end.

I bled through my glove as I waltzed a knife

between my imperfect fingers.

He burned my blue eyes to red.

He painted me in green like I was dead.

Do you like it?

How could I tell him it was my death foretold?

A mirror; a scrying, crying glass to the

bloated chartreuse,

algae-fleshed

organ case

I will be when he leaves.

That will be the day of my third murder:

the day my spirit dies.

I said I liked it very much. He smiled.

In a moment I was burned with all the kisses he ever gave;

They scorched me like the white sun over Málaga,

filling my mouth and nose with

honeysuckle and night-flowering jasmine.

Relentless,

my other face still stared.

Red eyed. Lop-sided. Monstrous.

It made all the flowers wither in me.

I hated it. And hated him. And loved him with all my heart.

But I knew it was over,

when he painted me in green.

Art by Jade Fagersten