Penguins!
Poem by Cath Drake
Her house brims with penguins
and penguins have such flexibility.
They can be any household item,
interchangeable with unicorns,
Shrek or bow-tied bears. Penguins
can hold hot coffee, be cuddled,
warm feet, tell stories. Rows of them
adorn a wall that’s always mid-migration
while the sun is setting. Of course,
they come in any colour or texture:
pink, blue, yellow, fluffy, inflatable.
And when they star in books and films,
penguins are deft at opera, tap, ninja
as they travel the world, fight crime,
go on odysseys, talk the bold talk,
have epiphanies. Penguins! Oh
darling penguins! But those penguins
made of blubber, bone and feather
who only gakker and peep, who
reek of ammonia and rotten shrimp
and get stuck on melting ice, who can’t
be gift-wrapped, quote profundities,
become box office hits, can’t be held—
what on this earth are they good for?
Australian Cath Drake is based in London. She was an award-winning environmental journalist and writer in Australia for a decade. Her poetry collection, The Shaking City (Seren Books), was longlisted in the international Laurel Prize and highly commended in the UK Forward Prize, followed by Sleeping with Rivers, a Poetry Book Society Choice and winner of the Seren/Mslexia prize. Other prizes include twice second place in the prestigious Ginkgo eco-poetry prize. She has been published widely in anthologies and literary journals internationally. Cath is also a mindfulness teacher, and she hosts The Verandah, quality online poetry events for UK & Australian writers, over 80 events a year.