A Brief Overview

The speaker, who is assumed to be the mother, takes the girl to a swimming party.  She notes that the girl is a superior math student and imagines her doing calculations about her relationship to the water as she and all the boys plunge into thepool.  She continues to describe the childish pattern on the young girl’s bathing suit and how her wet hair hangs down her back.  The poem concludes as the speaker mentions that the girl will surely take notice of the masculinity of the boys surrounding her, even in her mathematical-dominant mind.