Questions on animals
and animals on quests
for festering nests
of gestating cockroaches
hoaching, encroaching
on rockhopper penguins
grasshopping dingoes
that sing to the moon
crooning to spoonbills
while oodles of poodles
go paddling for ducks
pluckily swimming
on seersucker lakes
to peer for, speir for
a stuffed duckbilled platypus
flatfish and krill
and rough stolonifera
that grow upon pylons
high on the prairie
where buffalo graze
praise them, O praise them
these quiet conchifera
top-shells, clams, ammonites
do not neglect them
the newts, nerds and nerkles
ladybirds, thirsty ones
ticks, crickets, midges
linnets and peewits
true owls and quails
false birds of paradise
peccaries, okapis
plump anacondas
and bumbling drones
and now for the questions:

Translated by Anna Crowe