Leandra

Sweating fever and Chantilly, I'm all
haunted breath, livid with the sweet
agitation of corsets. The way night
spreads its skirt of blackness. Kiss me
and I’ll taste of broken glass and dirty
windows. My dress so pink and whorled
it looks like a baby's ear. Our dreams
grow riddled with thimbles. With tiny
violins. Darling, I suffer from the most
vertiginous of echoes. Note the softness
of light, the biology of incandescent
things. Even she smells of sleeping
sickness, museums of absinthe.
Understandably there are moans, sighs,
the tremulous outlines of collarbones.
All the lamps lit like eyes. I’ll  
moan at stains in a crimson panic,
whisper to myself, This is what I
shall leave behind.