Wednesday Poetry Challenge

Kat Collins has presented a Wednesday Poetry Challenge — she has challenged me to write a poem about something most people find ugly, but which I find beautiful.  Here it is:

Hippo

Jowly, toothy face,

Too fierce to be borne;

Two to three tons of nothing

but meanness

And rage, and vicious animal instinct.

Neither river nor land

Is safe.  So big

Even

Salt-water killer crocodiles

Avoid her gaze.

Below the river, which

Looks so brown,

Is another place.

Safety for her get,

Bouncing beside her.

See her tusks, her teeth

Bared in a huge mouthy grin

So tiny fish

Can enter that scary place

And perform their underwater dentistry.

She is still fierce.

And yet she is lovable,

In all

Her bristling, lumpy

Beauty beneath the water.

Mother Hippo and her baby

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