She was as beautiful

as only a woman

made for dirt can be.

P. J. Wolfson

Bodies Are Dust

1931

Money is no fun

to go to bed with.

Gardner F. Fox

Witness This Woman

1959

She gave me a smile
I could feel
in my hip pocket.

Raymond Chandler
Farewell, My Lovely
1940

Guards knew when the blue devils had

seized the inmates of these cages.

They couldn't eat.

And there were times, too, when

even the guards couldn't eat.

Theodore Dreiser

An American Tragedy

1925

She pulled off her brassiere and

held it aloft. There were cheers,

and she turned from one side

to the other triumphantly.

Her breasts looked enormously

distorted in the moonlight,

their hard, clean crowns gleaming

and the shadows they cast hanging down

like ugly sinister forebodings

of the ruin age would bring

to their strength, their thrust.

David Karp

Hardman

1953

If you want to know

the truth that much,

go out and commit

a crime yourself.

That's the only way

you'll ever know.

Asa Nonami

The Hunter

1996

(trans. by Juliet Winters Carpenter)

I looked down at myself.

It was like seeing

a technicolor rainbow shining

on a bushel basket full

of mangled bread dough.

Gil Brewer

The Squeeze

1955