The scientists said if I can imagine it, then
it exists, if only in some other world: the flamingo
as pink smear, a bird wave in an array
of possible positions. When the zoo opens,
the flamingo rises on one long swizzle-stick leg, exactly
like a lawn flamingo. The hidden leg is folded, or perhaps
retracted into a compartment beneath the cotton candy
belly. In another world, the leg is bitten off
by the dun-colored Southern Screamer with whom
she shares a habitat. In another, rats tunnel up from below,
pulling the feet down through a floor of wire mesh. They shear off
or they don’t, at a predictable ratio. The pet stores
sell dried flamingo chews, longer than chicken feet,
for extended pleasure. It is a painful world for some.
The scientists said if I can imagine it, then it exists,
if only in some other world.
I hope I am misunderstanding.
In one world, a daughter drops forty pieces of popcorn
into the flamingo enclosure, then reaches in
to grab them from out of the avian mud.
I wipe her messy mouth. She’s there, in some of those worlds.
In some of those worlds, she isn’t.