I have this thing for pink flamingos;
had one on my lawn for twenty-eight years
in Philadelphia. When it finally
died of old age—so weathered that it
simply fell apart—my dear friend Dale
sent two more from Waukesha, Wisconsin.
–
But a dozen years ago, we downsized
to a condo, and of course the courtyard
was common ground, so I couldn’t
put my pink flamingos on the lawn.
I’ve really missed them. Silly, I suppose,
but I’ve missed my pink flamingos.
–
Meanwhile, on my most recent birthday,
my daughter said she had a present,
but we had to have some time to spend
together. Several hours, she said. It took
a couple weeks to find the time,
but we finally sat down together
at her kitchen table, and she handed me
a Lego pink flamingo kit: a couple hundred
little plastic pieces with an illustrated
booklet of instructions. And together we
assembled my flamingo. It’s sitting
on the shelf in front of me right now.
–W.D. Ehrhart