JEAN/SUZANNE
after Jean Michel Basquiat & Suzanne Mallouk
the choices she made.
to love, to stay, to change him,
to nurture, to be hated,
to hate.
she may be considered his muse,
but she really was her own girl,
he plucked her but
soon enough the flower grew feet.
the first kiss at night birds,
his work, his constant craving,
widowed without marriage,
holed up in a loft with a
funny fridge, splattered floorboards,
heroin somewhere,
cocaine everywhere,
sex and miles davis,
jazz and drawing horses,
she was venus with her mars boy,
astronaut artist disappears into the atmos.
she finds space under the table,
a spy let loose in the loft,
muse becoming voyeur,
watching him paint the name ‘venus,’
they eat french pastries, her beehive drooping,
his dreadlocks over one eye,
she leaves one new york summer,
he paints her name in white,
what could he paint without her?
the girl who knows her skeleton.
maybe he’ll call andy.
soon enough she’s washing his body,
dope-ridden with fire-tip fingernails,
other artists had painted her since,
but it was too late,
one you’ve been embedded into a canvas
rather than portrayed, perused, pictured,
there is no going back,
he came to say goodbye one day,
but he ran off somewhere.
she remembered when he painted her arms,
always watched like a hawk,
she loved the bones of him
his frail bones, poking into his flesh,
humerus, ulna, radius, carpus,
stronger than God,
weaker in love,
‘I always let you in, Venus.’
Zofia Elliott, 19, England ✯ IG: @zofiaarose
“Zofia is a young writer from London, a writer who paints, plays with words and dances around the room alone after most writing sessions.”