Pink Flamingos Spotted on the Shores of Lake Michigan
Somewhere between Cuba and the Yucatan
a flamboyance of flamingos got lost.
Perhaps hurricane currents carried the birds
far North. Photos show their svelte S-necks
impossibly pink against wild blue waves. No map.
No GPS. How will these beauties find their way?
In Parkleigh, my favorite shop, the coat speaks my language.
Fresh off the Barbie set, the pink pleather features
a fur collar dyed to match. I am dying with desire.
Did I mention the fur cuffs? Pink Glamingo.
The price tag a stark revelation in black, more than
my fabric change purse can bear.
How often have I lost myself amidst fashion’s
current trends? Dresses, shoes, scarves.
Book me a flight North.
Let me stand with my flamingo
brothers and sisters,
at home wherever we’ve landed.
All I need are the soft
pink feathers of my imagination.
The Spider and the Fly
I feast on Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. A teleportation experiment goes awry, fusing poor Jeff’s body with a housefly. He turns more and more grotesque, sprouts ghastly hairs. A man-sized bug jolts the senses,
carries me back to the sci-fi flick Tarantula I saw with my best friend, Rita Knipper, at the West End Theater on Thurston Road. A lone spider morphs into a monster after a lab trial backfires. Science again!
The jumbo creature pummels Paul’s Pizzarama, mansions, the Five-and-Dime, a loaded tourist bus. Rita and I watch that film four times. So gory, so glorious. We’re only nine. It’s getting late. My dad shows up to take us home,
his face white as venom. Suspended in the air, his hand beckons from the aisle, seems to grow bigger than the box of buttered popcorn I let slip from my grasp, spilling tiny kernels onto the scuffed black floor.
Shirley J. Brewer (Baltimore MD) serves as poet-in-residence at Carver Center for the Arts, and on the board of directors of Passager Books. Her poems garnish Barrow Street, Passager, Gargoyle, Poetry East, Loch Raven Review, among other journals and anthologies. Shirley’s poetry books include A Little Breast Music (Passager Books), After Words (Apprentice House Press), Bistro in Another Realm (Main Street Rag), and Wild Girls (Apprentice House Press). Goddess of Swizzle is forthcoming in 2026 from Apprentice House.
website: shirleyjbrewer.com