A Boy Can Wear a Dress

A boy can wear a dress

    by cliff or by

creek, by God or by

   dark in the caul of the devil.

A boy can wear a dress

    bought with a tin-

can full of cherries on the

    day of his daddy’s dying.

A boy can weep in his dress—

    by boat or by plane, he

can sleep in his dress,

    dance in his dress, make

eyes in his dress at the

    flame at the hotel bar.

[  ] it all to graceland,

    how stunning he looks

in his blue cotton dress,

    just stunning! Nothing can

keep him from

    losing our minds, sluicing

my heart in that way he does.

    Nothing can keep him.

On the walk to his daddy’s wake,

    persons of rank may

question his dress,

    raise their brows at his dress,

so he twirls and twirls

    till his dress is its own

    unaddressed question, un-

veiling the reasons he

    wakes every morning, like an

x-ray for colors beneath

    your colors, your

zygote soul, your naked twirl—