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Child Development by Billy Collins

As sure as prehistoric fish grew legs 
and sauntered off the beaches into forests 
working up some irregular verbs for their 
first conversation, so three-year-old children 
enter the phase of name-calling. 

Every day a new one arrives and is added 
to the repertoire. You Dumb Goopyhead, 
You Big Sewerface, You Poop-on-the-Floor 
(a kind of Navaho ring to that one) 
they yell from knee level, their little mugs 
flushed with challenge. 
Nothing Samuel Johnson would bother tossing out 
in a pub, but then the toddlers are not trying 
to devastate some fatuous Enlightenment hack. 

They are just tormenting their fellow squirts 
or going after the attention of the giants 
way up there with their cocktails and bad breath 
talking baritone nonsense to other giants, 
waiting to call them names after thanking 
them for the lovely party and hearing the door close. 

The mature save their hothead invective 
for things: an errant hammer, tire chains, 
or receding trains missed by seconds, 
though they know in their adult hearts, 
even as they threaten to banish Timmy to bed 
for his appalling behavior, 
that their bosses are Big Fatty Stupids, 
their wives are Dopey Dopeheads 
and that they themselves are Mr. Sillypants.