So the dress will be red
like the first time you bleed thru the back of your skirt, red fabric,
spun from the cling of an unashamed lover on a crowded street and
just as soft as their lips there are pockets made of the attic crawl
spaces of old homes for your brass knuckles and your lipstick and
photos of your grandmother feeling bold in her bikini in 1964
and it is strapless
and it can be strapless because the bust line is made from the branches
of pomegranate trees and the backbone of Atlas but with an underwire
made of the weightlessness felt in water the dress flares at the bottom
like a mermaid tail
made of fireworks
and wish-headed dandelions. The whole thing stitched with string
lights pulled straight from a Christmas tree holding
everything you ever coveted
but were denied for not being deemed worthy piled underneath
because we are worthy of wanting this dress doesn’t ask for
attention
it takes
it.