The Corset’s Gate

In the deepest, darkest chamber of the cold and vaulted tomb,
Where the shadows dance together in the damp and heavy gloom,
I beheld a silent treasure, woven out of fear and fate,
‘Tis a midnight corset fashioned from the skeletons of hate,
From the ribs of lovers parted, and the stern and silent great
Only this, and such a freight.

It is fashioned, it is molded, with a cruel and cunning art,
To encompass the breathing of a cold and broken heart.
Not of satin, nor of velvet, nor of golden thread it lies,
But of narrow, pearly bones beneath the cold and midnight skies
Pearly bones that whispered secrets to the stars with hollow eyes
Underneath the night that dies.

Oh, the clasps are made of obsidian, dark and deadly to the touch,
And the laces, woven tightly, hold the wearer far too much;
With a stern and stark embrace that the living rarely know,
It constrains the foolish passion, it restricts the spirit’s flow
Ties the human to the bone-field in the melancholy snow
Down in silent, silent woe.

When the moon is high and ghostly, in the steeple tolls the bell,
Then the Midnight Corset rustles with a dark, enchanting spell.
It whispers of the raven’s flight, and of the cypress tree,
It tells the wearer of the fate that binds the soul and me
A rigid, pale confinement, in a dread tranquility
For eternity, for me.

Wear it then, in silent vigil, wear the raiment of the past,
While the shadows of the arches on the marble floor are cast.
With a firm and cold reminders of the ages long ago,
It shall guard the weary spirit from the world of ebb and flow
Keep the essence of the phantom in the pale and silver glow
Where the bitter breezes blow.