She is starched and grim, strict,
Ironing board stiff,
With an unlucky eyelid twitch,
An iron rim, the cooper is proud
Of his handiwork.

And the drunken night
Thick with all her tics
Comes Alive as he reaches inside,
Snatches her shrunken lustful heart,
Breathes deep to fog her glass.

It's unlucky to find fear
Here of all places,
To know warmth as deceit,
Comfort as a needle, in the spine,
Lust as the thickest of all revenges.

And so she is brick,
She is robust and errorless, debugged,
Perfect.
She's her own offering,
Salted, unsweet, unbleeding.

And so she is starched and grim, stiff,
Drawn and rigid,
With that unlucky tic
Of the eyelid
She fumbles her gesteres, gestures