Lowell has a garage full of the bodies
pink
pods of unruffled feathers
curved
beaks folded to breast bone.
Two
a week for 30 years, thrown into
the
back of his truck instead of the trash.
Keith
has been collecting legs,
each
beginning a tentative stride;
they
line the attic, basement, potting shed.
Their
paint is chipped and running toward gray.
When
his wife left, she took the ones that held
the end
table.
Janis
quit dreaming about birds, paved over
the
lawn and cut the trees to keep
the
avian presence away.
When
the plant closes she’s moving north
somewhere
no flamingo would ever go.
She’s
turning in Keith and Lowell before she leaves,
won’t
allow them to reassemble the past.