The seeming grown woman

goes for a thirty nine year old

guitar playing bad boy. It’s how

he plays—not who he is. He doesn’t

know that yet. And the woman

gives out jobs that’s what she does

she has always given out jobs

This Madame of Music

treating whores as artists

artists as whores.

Where are the drugs? The booze? The yelling

in the speakeasy, the flash of the knife?

They are lost in stories, but

the Madame of the Music

gives out jobs

despite the fact she knows that

lovers go to other rooms

and whisper their secrets

over other wooden tables

with initials carved into the surfaces

with butter knives.

— Elizabeth Swados