artist’s model/i’m an – Adam Berlin

September 19, 2025

1

she’s on the floor kneeling like praying
the paper’s the color that butchers use

in her notebook a list of fairytale starts
once upon a time je veux

once upon a time I am afraid
and polaroids of naked bodies

for filling in when the body goes
in the morning i smell like acrylic

ripped sheets hang of me/not me
on her studio walls

leg and arm and arch and clavicle
good lines when i stand or lie

muscle and sinew and bone outline

2

at the Balthus exhibit/her eyes are tired outside
she tells me of his brother Klossowski

who photographed one girl every day
silver-haloid stills fucking time/against the walls

he’s spread their young thighs
the cotton-white underwear looks touched

the one without dreaming in the title
she’s facing forward and wears more red

in the next room there are too many spectators
the Balthus girls are grown

she will tell me her history of narcissism she says
she is certain it is different from mine

sometimes I go to the gallery and listen
it is a kind of drug she says

a kind that stops and holds
i see heroin bends

my show of those of you
will have my name

they’re posed on chairs not beds

3

she arranges charcoal/tubes of paint/brushes
she fills a bowl with water at the sink

you may undress
I am polite but not my art she says

the man who shot Breathless he was a photographer of war
À bout de souffle sounds more like losing breath she says

she kneels and starts against paper
brush-sounds like scuffs outlining my lines

in French it is profaner/to desecrate
I will write only in giant letters like the Hollywood sign

there are different kinds of whites and sizes
I like the sounds here of certain words

I am sometimes between two places
all those women who posed for Picasso

they became a kind of period she says
she stops/looks/streaks red

i dress

4

I must read to you she says
once upon a time je t’aime

once upon a time I am sad
the papers I use make noise

the papers are not flat on the floor so not flat
you always press into me here she says

I will not lie to make them feel better she says
once upon a time I am done

the wolf cock shoots blood like bullets not pain
your body is already profaner

she marks the polaroid
ink smell and chemical

you may undress

he used a handheld camera for each frame
exact when stopped

your leg like this she says
like this

i hold and breathe
into the body’s pull

of no movement