Hip-Hop Talent Show

What we suddenly all saw –
the Humberts, the mothers, her mother,
the guilty men, the three of us,
the panicked stage manager –
was the bare breast popped out
of the shirt like a joey out of its pouch

which only one boy had seen,
a fifteen-year-old named Derek –
herself fifteen since March –
who’d undressed her gently in his bedroom
while his cousins watched football
on a set rigged up in the kitchen.

He’d played this song
move your body like a like a
that guided his fingers around buttons,
and made unfamiliar movements
conform to the badass-ness of the moment
or song, whichever one.

So she’d picked it
for the last act of the talent show,
moving her body in ways
she’d learned through trial and error
moves her hips like a like a
then taught to her skinny friend,

a virgin, too, barely, too,
in some sort of mesh and a tank top
both of them committed to finishing now
seeing as they’re up there now in front
both of them mouthing lyrics
they just about understand.