I never meant to stay
I suppose that’s what they all say.
It was my first time in a peepshow
so when the girl smiled at me
I said ‘Only looking’ and she replied
‘That’s how I got started here too’.
A united Europe. Written in 1997. First published in Marlene Dumas, Sweet Nothings. Notes and Texts | Politics (of Art), first edition Galerie Paul Andriesse and De Balie Publishers Amsterdam, 1998; and second edition (revised and expanded) Koenig Books London, 2014.