“Pink”

By Thomas Page

I am student teaching a senior level class in Washington, DC. They have to write some poems on these prompts. I decided to try all 30 of them. However, I will not say what the prompt was but what its number was.

Prompt #5

There is a lake in Australia that is pink—

We don’t know why

But it often appears in didyouknows

That the lake in Australia is pink.

Flamingos are born white and become pink

Because they eat so much shrimp or krill or whatever they’re called

That it dyes them that color.

There are more plastic than real ones.

Pink used to be a boys’ color

Until that happened

Because it was a warm hued tint.

Mamie Eisenhower made pink chic again at the Ball.

Many languages don’t have the same words for color as we do.

There is actually a schema for when they appear.

I don’t remember the order but it’s not Roy G. Biv.

The Spanish word is rosada.