Jo Burns

Dora, what hurt me was not your fists
or even him in your clutch.

It was his passivity as we hissed
at each other. He’d told me before

about Guernica; how it was for me,
the extent of his love. I’d accepted his use

of my blood, but still...
A woman knows when something is up.
The one in his new work was elegant, sharp,

sleek and dark. And here you were, claiming
it all. I asked him Pablo, which one of us leaves?

and he weighed me, gentle, against you, smart.
Dora, you know he refused to decide;

not truly yours but no longer mine.
We grappled, writhed. But what’s a few bruises

compared to being drawn as you die slowly?
More painful than those new sketches of me,

increasingly ugly, pastelled and blurred,
was my victimhood, portrayed by him

contrasted with glamour and monochrome.
And then the smirk as you and I bled;

The choicest experience of my life, he said.

Dora, can you imagine yet how it feels
to see through art how undesired you are?