Introduction by Ted Kooser: How’s this poem for its ability to collapse all the years from childhood to middle age in a matter of fifteen short lines? George Bilgere is one of this column’s favorite poets. He lives and teaches in Ohio.

The Wading Pool

The toddlers in their tadpole bodies,

with their squirt guns and snorkels,

their beautiful mommies and inflatable whales,

are still too young to understand that this is as good as it gets.

Soon they must leave the wading pool

and stand all day at the concession stand

with their hormones and snow cones,

their soul patches and tribal tattoos,

pretending not to notice how beautiful they are,

until they simply can’t stand it

and before you know it

they’re lined up on lawn chairs,

dozing in the noonday sun

with their stretch marks and beer bellies,

their Wall Street Journals and SPF 50.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2014 by George Bilgere from his most recent book of poems, Imperial, Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 2014. Poem reprinted by permission of George Bilgere and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2015 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.