Corsets and Innuendos

Corsets and innuendos noire of arsenic dressed in green velvet listening to the bayou breathe through the shutters; the scent of magnolias…rolling sweetly in my baby’s arms as whalebones sing, tracing her fingers around the rim of her bourbon, the dark rings under her eyes from sleepless nights spent with me…sweat-slicked and sighing in the lamplight…she whispers to me in french…so i tighten the laces…just one more inch…as she taste the tongue of her Damocles against the shadowed walls of the bordello where the pianos play themselves…her corset strings tied to the bedpost…she arches her back…and whispers… “encore”…the whalebone sings…and the bayou exhales a scintilla of daylight…yawning…the bedpost groans against the tension of silk laces, a sound like the bayou snapping its fingers…her breath catches as i pull the knot tighter…”plus fort”…she gasps…”harder”…the corset creaks…the whalebones sigh…and the bayou laughs…as the bedpost splinters…and she falls into my arms…her corset strings slackening…her body limp…her breath ragged…her lips parted…her eyes wide…her skin flushed…her hair wild…her heart pounding…her body trembling…her voice a whisper…”again”.