Stephanie Duke // Contributor
Anais Bayle // Illustration
person
parisian
photographer.
lover
mistress
weeping woman.
one chapter in her book
with volumes before and after
years of work and perfecting craft
now resigned to being “a muse”
behind every great man is a woman
his voice expressing your essence
his mark on paper
his more valuable than yours
shadows so long, no choice but to stand in them
as a sketch, or a painting,
some one dimensional thing.
how many times did he make you
weep before he decided
it was worth the ink to remember?
your image sold for a hundred million dollars
hanging around galleries, waiting for recognition
painted women.
enough nudes for vito acconci to lay
on a floor for three weeks, eight hours a day
and all he did was talk dirty and masturbate.
ask a man who his favourite female artist is
and he laughs.
partly to fill the silence that says
he couldn’t even think of one.