CELÉSTE DÉRÈME
Corsetière
Nietzsche says
Woman has cause for shame
If she unlearns her art of charming.
But he had no more transparent plane
From which to analyze the world
Than I who corset idle women
And stand to labour to their conversation.
Tiens! Aphrodite is long dead
And her progeny are become asexual marionettes
To dance and not pay.
Some women aid slackened muscles
With steel and satin stripes,
Some buy stiffened nainsook
To shape their barrenness,
And mirrors flatter the deception.
Yesterday I measured a fevered creature
To suckle a child
And she completes the metaphor.
Clothed in renascent flesh
A mirror seemed the last place that she cared to look.
When I rejoiced to see comeliness
Arrows pointed in her eyes.
She was too deceived by fantasie
To divine her glory.
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