Flamingo Film

I admire the whip of their wings in the sun, whorish pink
of feathers, above all the strut, nonchalant in capes
tackier than Key West sunset, as if, baby, what else
waits for us but walking on water and pink landscapes?
A life we chose once, never then thinking of kids,
pensions, the awful news, the papers pimp for sales.
Our TV's weekend nature show brings it back in flicks

of flamingoes swirled like semen, frantic for a quiet cove,
a mind confused as seed passion-blown. After it swirls,
it blithely drops lurid feathered bodies everywhere, no
hole or hump resistible, long Rockette legs uncoiled,
high breasts. A few bright boys troll for the weakest.
Some mate, some dissidents argue and spit. A callow
knob-kneed female trips alone, dipper-neck that probes

brown lake scum as if it gripped gold. This gruel, like God,
is mute and heavy, and her crowd's moving on. What
sign should we, voyeurs in the dark, give her? That black
snouts of crocs are coming? I watch her suck a carp
and half-twirl, slim as Bolshoi's best, moves sublime,
a sequined dancer aloof on neon streets we've walked,
hot pink wings lifting her from the ordinary suck of mud.

Copyright © 2005 Dave Smith All rights reserved
from Five Points
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission