The Dress

The dress was
worn once at the dance
where the boys stood
on the side of the room
shy eyed and eager
and the girls sashayed
back and forth trying
on personalities
they’d borrowed
from tv shows and magazines
where the scene faded to black
when the clasp of the
dress was caressed
after the dance
it was broken
by an unshy boy
who said she’d said yes
now the lie of the
blood stains haunts
the back of the dress
and it hangs in
the closet in
silence and shame
until a goodwill girl
pulls it from the rack
slips her arms inside
shivers as the cold fabric
scratches her skin
she knows this dress
by woman know
she caresses the pink stains
scattered like tears
when she gets home
she dips the fabric
into a deeper red dye
erasing the past
the dance, the lie

Leslie Dianne is a poet, novelist, screenwriter, playwright and performer whose work has been acclaimed internationally in places such as the Harrogate Fringe Festival in Great Britain, The International Arts Festival in Tuscany, Italy and at La Mama, ETC in New York City. Her stage plays have been produced in NYC at The American Theater of Actors, The Raw Space, The Puerto Rican Traveling Theater and The Lamb's Theater. She holds a BA in French Literature from CUNY and her poems have appeared in The Literary Nest, Kairos and About Place Journal and are forthcoming in Hawai’i Review.