A dress patterned like seventies carpet.Saucy skirt cut on a bias, giving glimpseof hairy thigh. Pit hair sneaks outaround spaghetti straps snakingto breast-sized triangles,grasping more air than flesh.

I proffer my melon saladto suspicious eyes.But you said you were trans.In one man’s face,a fresh flicker of desire.

Boys can wear dresses,I announce, still soprano,spooning unripe melon onto reluctant paper plates.I pierce a honeydew with plastic tines.Chit-chat lurches, veers away.They call me she, just like when I wore a tie.

Humid air whispers between dress and flesh,a hum louder than the party’s din.

I ask a raspberry if the dress was too much,and it bursts summer all over my teeth.