KD13

don’t look at me

where’s my flowers
where’s my dreams
my memory

why do you stare
what’s to see?
am I a fucking picture?
in a frame
sealed off from light and life

this is so unreal
I can’t feel myself
would an itch be a beautiful thing?

don’t look at me
if I could
I’d turn my face
to the wall

I’d give everything
for just a conversation
and to feel you
feeling me

please don’t look at me

-after the above image by Kate Dorrough

Robert Kennedy


With Lautrec in Monmartre (1889)

We lounge and wait for customers
resigned or hardened to this life of love
we know as war.
The cripple sketches as we lie about
half-dressed.

Drawing us no better than we are
he takes from us such gestures
from which no-one can be saved;
drafts those parts that wives
are loath to show and men
will pay a fortune for.

The little man has found his place
we're all outsiders here.
We share his wine, the absinthe
and the pain; the theatre
of painted masks, the camouflage
of camoufleurs.

Les Elles he calls us
and we hoist our skirts
and see the passion blazing in his eyes.
His hand moving quickly on the page
he smiles, delighting in our hair
bordello bellies and each brazen face.

Paula Mckay