Miss Wonderly

[Wjames]

I won't play the sap for you.
The gunsel came next
and behind him, the fat man. Good lord - I had to google gunsel, and for some reason that made it all the better. I love it.

You dug holes in the desert
searching for such stuff
as dreams are made on -- I would cut "as", not a big deal, but I think it reads better without it.

nightmares, plaster stones
and my partner's corpse 
burned into your pretty skin. 

Wonderful stuff - it's not often I enjoy being forced to research things to understand a poem. I've never read The Maltese Falcon, I'm going to add it to my reading list.