Poet Zeina Hashem Beck’s “Flamingos” in The Southeast Review reflects on the normalcy that persists, even in the midst of a child’s illness.
She begins in second person, as “the nurses pushed your bed into the OR.” The context quickly takes shape, the way a promise is made in response to outstretched arms “to see the flamingos / in the hospital garden downstairs.”
Hashem Beck signals there are expectations when caring for a loved one who is ill, but that we sometimes do the irrational: “The worried aren’t supposed to be hungry, / but I ordered food because it was reassuring.” The food represents a comforting nourishment, even if not consumed.
In “Flamingos,” Hashem Beck shows the divide between the “outside” world and that of the world of illness: surgery, the ICU, hospitals. In caring for her daughter, she is so removed from this alternate world that when she returns home for the simple act of a shower, she stumbles with the cadence of normalcy: “hair dripping, my arms full / of laundry, for a second I must have forgotten / my step, twisted & cracked my ankle.” A friend helps her to the emergency room, and all she can do is laugh, tell the doctor to “to fix my ankle, quick, I have a daughter / waiting in a room upstairs…”
“Flamingos” is a reflection on how life goes on, how “life will sometimes infect your daughter’s lung / & fracture your ankle in the same week.” There is a kind of apology, a stream of motherly advice in the end. The wisdom that even on mundane days, the days “the car doesn’t break down, / & the children are healthy, & your husband / loves you … you will be terrified nevertheless, / & sometimes empty. It’s ok if you forget / to put one foot in front of the other.”
Writing Prompt: When you or a loved one is ill, do you feel the divide between the “outside” world and the one you’re living through? In what moments does that divide manifest? I like the allowance the poet gives, that’s it’s okay to forget to put one foot in front of the other. Have you ever experienced a situation when it felt like all you could do was put one foot in front of the other? What happened, or might have, if you didn’t? Write for 10 minutes.