The New Breed

A squog that skittered across the road -
a glooper leaping out of the pond -
a kwonk with ears hung low -
a claabik creeping to the outskirts of its web -
a saber-toothed gooma stalking a fludge -
a clink-bird, solitary on a fluttering branch -
a glabba howling from dusk to dawn –
none of these will do.
I'm here with a splank,
the nearest thing to feminine company
this planet provides.

But she's no woman.
She doesn't flirt with her eyes.
Or smile face-wide.
Or wrap her fingers inside mine.

A clobb with head plunked deep in mud -
a skinger weving vines into a nest -
a glugg calm in the face of lightning -,
a shooba sniffing around a hoba's cave -,
a shlungg with a goot in its beak -
a streb dashing through the brush -
anyone of these could have been the one
but no, I've been assigned to the splank.

But such are the quirks
of interplanetary relationships.
You get whatever the biological scientists
reckon to be genetically compatible.
"I was hoping to be set up with a hippo,"
the splank says to me.