Sierra Hixon

Elegy for a Dress, Broken

Almost ripe—meaning almost ready to rot
into a body draped with floral fabric—until
it’s not. I can’t remember when

or how or why it broke, just that it was shortly before we did,
not considering that this knot you tied to hold

it would stay together for years, and then when it finally came
undone in a parking lot, there was no one to fix it and I would’ve burned
it, but I can’t

remember where I put it, but I can burn
you, smelt your smoke-curled hands from arms from your body
with mine. Taut as the knot that stayed

and stayed, nestled into my blades, until I forgot
it was there, looked closer

at the hole it was looped through, remembered you
were the one reason it held, shielded my shoulders from blistering

eyes that knit shame into these frayed fibers. But rotten
fruit is nothing more than forgotten flesh, and if this is true, I am

overripe, a plum past its point of picking, and aren’t we all waiting? To drop
into a mouth means to become bare, means to bare teeth (if you can

grow them), means to bury, to become berried, to bear the weight of the oglers—failing
to tie and retie, because they beg you: ripen, repent, they lie, you will

be saved! And bear you must, little strawberry, apple-
eyed, because once you’re grown and tender, he will be

standing, grinning, waiting, pruning
sheers in hand, to spike you into a wet mouth, a warning
to us all: when you are savored, you have to be chewed, held

captive behind bared teeth. And to be loved is to be swallowed, and to be wanted
is to be real, because how can you want something that doesn’t exist—is it possible
to exist without being wanted by something?

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Sierra Hixon has poems published or upcoming in journals including Slipstream, Harpur Palate, the Scarab and more. She is currently a student at Salisbury University.