Ballard The Butcher and the Story of Burlesque

I liked your hands oh so very, very much

I was a very impatient girl,

save when it came to you and your devices

I liked them all---

but I thought you were done here,

finished and all

that you had gotten everything you could

my cheeks were bone dry

and my scales were falling so slowly to the ground

but it was just dead skin

I liked to hold my hands out and pretend I was opening salt water taffy

but it was the motion of you ripping this in half, throwing it on the ground

and then mincing it like meat

So instead of letting it all go down like that,

I picked up the scales and painted them back red

and I powdered my nose good and white

until there was nothing left to say---

just the sound of the paradiddle

and the shim sham shimmy