Dressed to slay, breathing smoke like liberty,
perhaps you thought you could make that city yours
as long as you were there,
were surprised to find it riddled
with u nmanageable tunnels
where death demanded of you
something pricey and uncertain.
Perhaps you thought, if you did not pay the entrance fee,
but wormed in of your own accord by night
you could not be accused of tourism,
would not be a citizen,
could avoid the empty gaze of skulls,
leave without guilt if you chose.
Later, perhaps, when you tired of playing femme fatale
with a murky native of that place
you thought, since you had gazed the other way,
you could peel off those stockings and not be left
with criss-cross lines of red
prison fences
netting in your pale, clean-shaven legs.