
Low Head, Tasmania
Little penguins waddle-queueing
like white-pinafored payday shoppers
round-bellied bustling
from the fish market,
flippers hanging,
laden with unseen baskets,
seeming with their seawater-glossy backs
to be sweating with scurrying effort
on stubby legs and slippered feet,
pausing between scuttles to queue,
heads turning to one another
as though in conversation.