Provincial girls distinguished

by neatness in needlework,

or tenement slaveys, who might

in the end have scrimped enough

to set up a laundry, their true vocation

nonetheless seemed to lie elsewhere.

 

Launched on the stage by letches,

whose lines they mangled,

stealing the show, they warbled

feebly en déshabille, until they had

hooked the monocle’d prince

or a soft-headed marquis.

 

Traversing the Bois, their panoply

outclassed the carriages

of short-changed matriarchs

and unadventurous wives –

their banquets notorious;

their jewels scattered around.

 

Such as it is, their myth’s generic,

their yearnings, greed and focus

a paradigm for moralists

whose scruples they unpicked –

their smouldering minutes reduced

to the cold ash of banknotes.

 

Overblown and Renoiresque

unless, tragically pale, they

died consumptive, most survived

beyond their prime: their faces

caked, their names the glory

of that ailing empire.