Mata Hari dancing
And here’s to Mata Hari dancing.
Wrapped in thirty pieces of dirty silver cloth,
barelegged, barefooted and her hair undone,
her long, pale neck exposed,
she sings her stories to the passing clouds.Her toes, kissed by army officers last night,
are cleansed by rain and mud.
Her pains are now forgotten
and the general’s rusty sword
not even worth a shrugged-off answer.
I love you, how I love you,
she sings to the bullets that enter her flesh.
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