Love Letter from the Bond Girls
by Elise Le Sage

Dear Mister Bond,
We love the strength of your hand as it
grabs hold of our hair, shoving
our heads, our chests, our feet
into the passenger seat of your Aston Martin, thus
saving us from a rain of bullets—and we do not ask where,
Mr. Bond, are you taking us? for you know best/
lest we come off as hysterical.

This is a love letter from the Bond girls:
blonde, brunette, we sit
with one leg crossed over the other, stomachs
sucked in. We breathe— so as not to disclose
the air-swelled organs beneath our bones—
all shallow and thin. There is always either
a pout on our lips or that sly little grin
that begs love me, fuck me, remind me of what I am.

And golly we’re glad we have a real man
to drag us along on adventures,
a man who knows that when we say no,
we are only pretending. We love
being tied up and gagged like you love
a girl with a mouth on her,
one who’ll talk back until you shut her up
with a kiss. We might resist
your charm, at first, but, oh, you’ll wear us down.
You’ll remind us—as you snatch us from the brink
of being shot, of getting drowned—
that we are alive by sake of your grace.
So here are our hearts, our pussies, our names.

Eat us up until we fade into the next girl
for there will always be a next girl
to sate the spy
who loved us until we liked it.