What I Wore

A dress patterned like seventies carpet.
Saucy skirt cut on a bias, giving glimpse
of hairy thigh. Pit hair sneaks out
around spaghetti straps snaking
to breast-sized triangles,
grasping more air than flesh.

I proffer my melon salad
to 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.