AT THE POOL WE'VE ALL GOT BODIES

At the pool we’ve all got bodies.
Elsewhere we’ve got brands
we’ve got fabrications
we’ve got lulu lemon butt lifting pants.

At the pool we’ve all got bodies
in trunks and clam shells—
some working with flaps and pleats pleading
to conceal, others an experiment in Swiss minimalism

and risk management—
all of us dealing with the unalterable fact
that we’ve all got what we’ve got, that
at the pool

we’ve all got bodies:
bouncy bodies
bodies that need brushing
fluorescent white, white bodies
energized child bodies
hot-tubbed tired bodies
bodies

all of them absorbed in being here!—
not spiritual ghosts,
not online avatars,
but us, at the pool
with splashing, floating,
leaping bodies.

Lance Odegard