There’s still the dress in the closet that she was wearing
to the Halloween party in 2014, one she can’t seem 
to get rid of, no matter how many times she tries,
the one she sometimes stops to run her hands idly
across the black and champagne sequined satin
as if somehow she can infuse the garment with energy
from her fingertips directly into the fabric,
something so fiercely powerful, so resiliently beautiful
that no one could possibly mistake a drunken night 
as a green light ever again.