Inevitable Poem by Mahogany L. Browne

when I dropped my 12-year-old off at her first
homecoming dance, I tried not to look

her newly-developed breasts, all surprise and alert
in their uncertainty. I tried not to imagine her

mashed between a young man's curiousness
and the gym's sweaty wall. I tried not picture

her grinding off beat/on time to the rhythm
of a dark manchild; the one who whispered

"you are the most beautiful girl in brooklyn"
his swag so sincere, she'd easily mistaken him for a god