Picasso's Lover

Amanda
Auerbach

You will never escape
the green gloom of our evenings together,
though you hide your face in
my shadow. You still see me in the same
jagged light.

Your hands shake because I am what you make me:
the relics of a corpse, the mistress
that prepares for you,
the virgin of your lust,
the widow you forsake.

You must come close, my dear,
you must come close
to see how we make
a cracked heart, a deflected beam,
a deep red opening.

Force your lonely
trembling into me, make
my eyes grotesque, rotted with color,
blush my cheeks with the shadows
of your hands.
Make me your
strange and violent relief.