Prodigal Daughter

Getting Dressed

in ruffles and taffeta, dressed in matching sweats,

in bright fuschia socks, rocking a baldie in church
pants cut into shorts, in dress shirts tied into knots,

singing the next verse chuckling under the moon.
Jupiter and Venus cloaked beneath the peachfuzz

buds on my upper lip, the few sprouts of thick hair
grown into carpets all over my killer legs, bared

like I forgot I thought shame was a virtue. I saw
rigid postures of gossip disguised as delight split

rooms in bilateral pews, the choir swayed palm up
in pomegranate gowns, babies clapped in 2/2

time entranced by praise to dance and laugh
while mothers clocked the proverbs 31 t-shirt

my mom got to announce I’d make a good bride
someday, a rib to be equally yoked, but I shirked

glory, rent my garments, ran barking toward the erotic
slobbering like Eve in the garden starved by want;

a taste of true knowledge in what I hypothesized.

Hiwot Adilow