Wrap Dress

 

You borrow my tie pin to hold the dress

closed where it keeps slipping open

over your breasts

 

I am the ripped knee of a pair of jeans

The pull tab for the bag of birdseed

The saw teeth on the edge of a roll of tape

 

The last stitch of a seam, secured once and then again

The spiral of a leaf

The inner curve of acorn’s cap

 

The apex

points down

to the arch of your sternum

I look and look away and look again

 

Rip the seam in a rush

Lose the acorn cap in leaf after leaf

My thigh tattoo peeking through the threadbare denim

Get scissors for the seed bag, open me

Run your thumb over the sticky side of the tape

 

When the cloth slips off your shoulders, falls

 

Untie, unpin, unbind me

 

 

 

Saturate

 

I carry a second pair of underwear

and in the middle of our make-out session

 

I change in the bathroom

because if I didn’t, I’d soak through my jeans.

 

Sometimes it’s still not enough

to stop the dark patch at the seam.

 

My first boyfriend used to joke about

chiseling himself out of his pants

 

and I didn’t know yet that boys

weren’t supposed to get this damn wet.

 

I thought, like me, he worried about being cemented

if we did not undress soon enough.

 

You assure me it’s good,

as the stain spreads to your thigh.

 

In the stories I read at night,

lovers are undone by getting their faces slick.

 

Mine asked me once if

he was going to need a towel.

 

I trace my finger over the descriptions of

lust-blown eyes and shiny chins,

 

as if it might make up for wearing panties

instead of briefs because they fold up better

 

to be tucked into the waterproof

bag I keep in my purse.

 

 

Filter

 

I will only send nudes in fragments;

my calf and tattoo sleeve, the beauty mark

on my breastbone, unlikely erogenous

zones, wrists and the tops of my feet.

I will not pose, and I do not care

what you like best. If we are doing this,

it’s for me. I will send you the slow filtering

of how I see myself in this body.

 

In return, I prefer sounds, so you can

send me short clips, or longer mp3s.

Streaming is fine, as are videos in darkness,

as long as I can hear your gasps and sighs.

If your begging with breath alone pleases me,

I might ask you to say a word here

or there. My new name is only one letter

 

 


Jerica Taylor is a non-binary neurodivergent queer cook, birder, and chicken herder. They have an MFA from Emerson College. Their work has appeared in Postscript, Versification, Feral Poetry, and perhappened. She lives with her wife and young daughter in Western Massachusetts.