Picture

this picture isn't mine want to feel the work the girls worked and we knew what they worked for: something mischievous, innate and intimate, and deceitfully obvious like the way a walk along the coastline is tiring yet so fundamentally restorative; and up front they displayed their unique wares, bundled in corsets barely able to contain a shallow breath, let alone landscapes of rolling porcelain flesh; and the men were simple, and imagined so much--but their broad shoulders and wide chests were inverse to the narrow confines of their emotional beings, for all they craved was a view, some furtive glance long enough to capture some memorable image somehow valued equally high whether stolen or earned. and so this dance went on the night, then for weeks, the women and the men, teasing and taunting one another, to give and to take, neither party recording the fair deal promised by youth and storybooks: and so it continues now as it has for a thousand years, and probably will for another thousand more; and we hope this woman on the raised corner, the one under the warm red light, whose ponytail is fixed aloft like a soldiers firm salute while passing guard, we hope she stays resolute in the promises she makes to herself, even after taking the money, that one day she goes back, even to those who swore her off, and never feels or looks forgotten.