Thursday, April 22, 2010

On Pink Flamingoes and Flight: A Poem-Essay



We do have pink flamingoes.

Like any self-respecting gay household.

Ours have weathered many storms and have lost much of their pink.  But I hold onto them, because.  Well, because I remember catching the eye of a man walking with his wife or girlfriend when we bought them at a garden show several years ago, and seeing the half-sneer he sought to disguise as a grin when he saw the gay couple buying pink flamingoes.  And when he knew that I was watching him.

And I don't want to be that man or the world  he inhabits.  I want to be me instead.  So I celebrate my pink flamingoes.

And I hold onto them just because.  Because they're pink.  And flamingoes.  And pink flamingoes.

And this spring, they're living in a patch of variegated Solomon's seal that has just stopped blooming, gathered as a flock about to take flight, stepping warily with their long, skinny legs through the foliage.

A reminder of who I can be--of who we all can be--if we walk where Solomon walks and try our wings now and again.