Two Flamingoes at Pea Island Reserve
A named storm brought them here,
pink pair walking the pier,
reed thin birds built backwards,
both in legs and bent beaks.
They deftly lift and land
in the crab-rich eelgrass.
Both bobbing, like dredge cranes,
they filter dark marsh sand.
So much was lost in muck
tossed by wind and man.
The flamingoes, themselves,
are lost in thick duckweed.
Water laps mismade knees.
Maybe they're deeper than
they meant to be. Surprised,
their eyes meet, then they rise.
But they need not fly far
to the safety of reeds,
to accompany grebes
in the sound-edge shallows.
Their necks intertwine like
some comic valentine;
your hand snakes into mine.
We two are like those two,
miles from what we call home,
wary of waves and tide,
wading in new waters,
still awkward as new love.
After two goose-like honks,
the birds rest, tuck their heads
under their sunset wings,
double stilt-hoisted hearts.
About the Author: Paul Jones. Chapel Hill, NC. Something Wonderful (Redhawk, 2021). Something Necessary (Redhawk, 2024). Recent poems in Rattle, New Verse Review, Tar River Poetry, Salvation South, Louisburg Review, and in anthologies including Best American Erotic Poems. Manuscript of his poems crashed into the moon in 2019. Another in February 2024 landed successfully. NCSU Computer Science Hall of Fame. 2021.
Image Credit: Public domain image originally from Adventures with Animals and Plants by Kroeber and Wolff, 1950 edition. Illustration of flamingos by Else Bostelmann. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
As It Ought To Be 
