I.
Black girls ain’t women
till our mothers say so,
but that ain’t ever
stop us from growing,
we wood-powdered bodies
dangling sin-dipped,
saging midnight with
incense & charcoal
I flesh out/
replace my humbled tee shirt
with a crop top that flashes
my bashful stomach,
I ain’t like grown grown yet,
but me & my girls do grown shit,
gossip till our mouths run dry,
& we are forced to drink
from fountains stupid boy spit in/
they must not know how
to care for something as soft as water
II.
today’s topic over stale ravioli
is about the hoe of our class, but she in our clique,
so she ain’t a hoe/ she a woman
she says, ‘yea, & anyway make sure you use a condom,
but also like double it up’
us not yet knowing about fire & friction/
dream gleefully at the masters we will become
she says, ‘there might be blood the first time, but don’t worry cause it’s normal’
& we are unafraid of blood
she says, ‘you ain’t got to shave forreal forreal & he better buy you food’
& we are unafraid of our bodies & how we must feed it
she says, ‘So what if he got a girlfriend?’
& we are unafraid of the other girls we knew could fight
III.
even now, i remember
the first boy’s rugged hands
i spilled in,
my face, an awkward rendition of
Sanaa Lathan & Omar Epps
in Love & Basketball,
but in the movie,
there was no
squeaky mattress
with one thin sheet,
no cockroach
feasting on bread crumbs
in the corner,
There, she said yes yes,
& her legs did not tremble
like mine,
amen the harlot’s heart,
the one who got caught
sucking dick in the secret
staircase
the one who said,
girl, you ain’t blend
that concealer
IV.
the one
who taught
us about us,
when our
mothers were
useless/
& only growled
at our sprouting
hips.