CHAPTER I

All on a dirt joke once Rachel McCree
Donned that whalebone corset—
The logger’s wife suckin in
Center stage that Kentuck cabin, 
All while Sam Nead’s wife hid her crooked grin. 

The wasp-waisted lady
Who lost her vay-lise at Sterlin Station
Could ne’er imagine
The odd fate of her precious intimate—
Strung like rack o’er barreled body

Til dainty baleen snapped and
Loosey flesh oozed like blubber
‘Tween all them rippin seams.  
They heard a long, loud crackin—
Like the fell of a far-off timber.

The corset broke in two.
Left that Rachel nekked. Squattin
Over hard-packed floor, nethers bearlike,
Breasts but bladders long-gone flat. 
Sam Nead’s wife forgot her crooked grin.

Then, a long off silence.
As after the mill’narian tree falls,
And the woodsmen stand round
That stump musing over the thing they killed—
Over all the fear hidin in the hollows of malice.

CHAPTER II

Can’t tell you, after all, the mind
Of John McCree come in from that 
Frigid wood, hands numb from swangin, 
Just to find his wife of thirty earthen years 
Standin in gingham over his supper stew. 
Cryin.

//TALE OF A KENTUCK CORSET//