We Have Done the Things that Whores and Painters Do

Close your eyes; I'm alive in your dreams, back in Paris before the war. I am an artist and you are the whore in my painting. Just a whore though, not less, not yet. I have captured your secret on the canvas and you have taken me in ways that we will both surely remember and laugh about. My name for you is "Petits Four" and that is ironic now. I am a Jew.

For days and hours I was consumed by your incredible aesthetic symmetry, my brush refusing to perfect your delicate proportions. Then, gradually and carefully, I unveiled the turmoil and the lust that scratched at your skin from the inside. You were a beast and we were beasts together and you were naked and raw like nobody or nothing that had posed for me before. I painted quickly and honestly until you and I were finished.

Then, I could no longer hold your hand or look at you in your face. My eyes were infected, senses numbed. I took what I needed and left you in a splendid and chaotic heap. Now I am here, in your dreams, to tell you I am sorry.

And when my time is death I bid that you return to my dreams and apologize also. To be who we were, in Paris before the war, is all that I desire. Speak and I will forgive you for laying down, for whispering my name or shouting it in the ears of Le Bosch while you were doing unspeakable other things to their bodies. You were a whore and I was a painter. We have done the things that whores and painters do.

I Never Told You This But I Was Born on the Day You Died

I see you, not with my eyes or in yours, but in words on the screen and floating by. These words that cannot be forgotten or contained in my mind tumble down the side of a mountain at even the slightest sound or movement. I am buried all the time and every day but I can feel you unearthing this rubble and tunnelling through the ice and snow. You do and will stand before me, always, not in Paris or a dress, but when it matters; your thoughts in mine.

Hi Daddy

Hi daddy, remember me? You drowned when I was nine. I'm fine, though I don't sleep too well at night. Worming around, it's hot. My feet get tangled in the sheets and I don't think about you until eventually I do. Are you still in that box, in the dirt? I picked the shirt that you were buried in but I didn't go to the funeral. Mum said, well never mind why. I want to dig you up and look at you. Do you smell like the ground? I would like to hold your hand when I'm feeling down. Like now. Even if it is decomposing or completely bones I think it would help. Things aren't going exactly okay for me and I want to sit on your lap and smell your neck. My friend is really sick and there's this thing with this girl and I know I could be happy but I need to sleep. Will you let me go? I promise I'll be back by ten. Sorry, sometimes I pretend that you are here in my memories, all those years when I was alone.

I saw you in the pool by the way, that day, and all I can remember is that you had a moustache and your hair was matted down in a straight line from your belly button to the rim of your bathers. I can't even think what colour they were. Is that strange? Sometimes red, sometimes blue. I don't swim much myself. That's obvious I guess. My girlfriend's name is Huo, that's Chinese for fire. She says I should take all my clothes off and jump in the deep end. She doesn't understand. Or she does. Either way, she got a job in Hong Kong and she's going. She's leaving me and that's what happens isn't it? In the end.