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Serpentine, Volume 3, Number 1, Winter 1999

The Pink Flamingo

by Janet I. Buck


Yup. Another petting zoo.
My splintered bones upon display.
Tickets to inferno odd
italicized by preying eyes.
I have lived like Nordic Tracks;
moving sidewalks speeding
up the inner-going.
Fed-Ex art, a firm retort,
but nothing could replace a leg.

The elevator to respect.
Forty years of pinching doors.
Pushing courage buttons hard.
Belly guts in pinkish feathers.
Balance iffy. Mine a foot
like flippers of a pink flamingo.
Webbed and black without erasure.
Walk the walk of acid shame.
Drag and drop with only stubborn.
Muscles melted. Rainbow sherbet
toasted by imposing dawning
from interrogating light.

There will come a time of shores
when tears are crayons to be crushed.
When I can cross my missing parts
like necks of swans instead
of arms of drunken sailors
swimming in the awkard hush.



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