Pulp Poem of the Week

Well.
The first impression was of
a slender, stylish, well-put-together
woman in her forties,
but almost instantly
the impression changed.
She wasn’t slender;
she was bone thin,
and inside the stylish clothes
she walked with a graceless
jitteriness,
like someone whose medicine
had been cut off too soon.
Beneath the neat cowl of
well-groomed ash-blond hair,
her face was too thin,
too sharp-featured,
too deeply lined.
This could have
made her look haggard;
instead,
it made her look mean.
From the evidence,
what would have
attracted her husband
would have been
her father’s bank.

          Richard Stark
          Nobody Runs Forever
          2004