"I'm A Tiny Man In Your Swimming Pool"

I'm a tiny man in your swimming pool
Mouthward ho! in your crazy straw
Thrashing upstream like a slippery fool

Bashful and powder white, you chalk up the rule
I pee in the water; you lithely withdraw
I'm a tiny man in your swimming pool

I try to fight it as in Catholic school
The awkward curve of your hardest jaw
Thrashing upstream like a slippery fool

Sometimes I felt the wet eyes, so cool
Peering from corners with primmest paw
I'm a tiny man in your swimming pool

Attending your fin-bellied Oedipal school
In the best of your mates lies my tragic flaw
Thrashing upstream like a slippery fool

Before me your face, so raw and so cruel
Eyes behind chalky white mask, and you saw
I'm a tiny man in your swimming pool
Thrashing upstream like a slippery fool

__________

A poem I wrote at the request of a classmate of mine, Shayne Terry, from David Lehman's class last year. She's publishing a follow-up to last year's Jam Today publication, which was the culmination of our efforts as a class. Shayne challenged me to write a poem with the phrase "tiny man" at a reading David Lehman did at KGB Bar.