A puffin
is not a baby
penguin,
despite my decades
of thinking it so.
I cannot be
angry
at the puffin,
its countenance
of cute,
its psychedelic
beak,
no matter how hard
I try ;
adoring its every
sway
from side-to-side,
much like its
fellow seabird,
surprised by its
capacity to fly,
confused by
its being an imprint
of Penguin Books,
its children’s line
since 1941,
that they’re clearly
to blame
for my ignorance—
there in A Little Princess,
in the tales of
Anne and Alice,
and especially
Call of the Wild,
which, to my chagrin,
contained no penguins
at all—
clueless I was
on where they
really lived,
thinking perhaps
they were away
when Jack London
came to visit,
shopping for tuxedos,
at the place the
puffins do,
who took to the air
once suited—
while the penguins
doubled back
with their receipts,
fuming at the
snugness
of their fit,
pouting like Pingu,
crisp like Chilly Willy,
cursing their genetics,
their ever-inability
to soar,
retracing every
step in single file,
their long , bitter
waddle
in the snow.
Andreas Gripp
December 3, 2024
RF Image
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