I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what's underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
doughnuts in their cafe, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I'm the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm you worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I'll pull that garment
from its hanger like I'm choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and love-cries too,
and I'll wear it like bones, like skin,
it'll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.

- Kim Addonizio


in dumb reply:

i am looking for a cotton summer dress
that i can ball up small and tight
at the bottom of a backpack
and wear every day in europe.
this is a dress for movement: riding trains,
strutting through city streets, hips high and back strong.
the dress brushes against the legs of strangers.
passes vendors stalls and their smell of cooking meat.
i want to rinse it out in small sinks
many floors off the ground, wring it out real tight,
and when it's still damp,
hang it over my shoulders again and walk until it dries,
and then keep walking. i want it to stink
in a way that only i could ignore.
i want this dress
to be in too many of the pictures we take,
to be inappropriate for anywhere
but europe in the summer,
to gather coffee drips and wine stains
and tear small threads
in the act of rising from splintered benches;
at least one bench in every city we visit.
i want my tan to be as a direct result of this dress
so that when i'm only wearing my skin
i'm still wearing the dress.