Bear with me in this story,
I promise it is true,
I know it seems unlikely
And to me it was quite new.
A different experience,
P’rhaps, familiar to you.
Though I would have to say,
I hope it’s not repeated.
I was bewildered, quite bemused,
At the way this thing was treated.
I went to a friend’s wedding.
The couple grinned at guests,
Their families stood around and smiled,
And helped them press the flesh.
Champagne poured, flowed freely,
There were snacks. And one guest figured
It would be fun … a
Big surprise …
Well,
That guest brought a lizard.
Yes, you heard me right,
A lizard.
At a wedding reception.
A lizard.
At a wedding reception.
I may be wrong to be so shocked,
But the case is this, you see,
A lizard at a wedding
Seemed peculiar, to me.
I thought they had to live in tanks,
Or be left wild and free, in
Australia, or somewhere,
Where other lizards be.
I’m not talking of a British eft,
Not talking something small,
This was a bearded dragon
With spikey teeth and all.
Clawed feet, googly eyes,
I saw them, from a distance.
A yellow skinny kind of thing,
No denying its existence.
It had a ruffle round its throat,
Just like a dancer’s boa,
Like you might wear to fancy dress
To be thought a ‘real goer.’
It wasn’t all imagined,
I swear this story’s true;
I saw it just as clearly as
Right now, I can see you.
Its forked tongue flickered in and out,
Its eyelids ticked and flared,
It seemed to look right at me,
I’ll admit it, I was scared.
And I’d never seen a lizard
Strut its funky stuff … on
A dance floor,
While the owner,
Stroked its erect ruff.
It eye-popped ~ freaky eye thing ~
Bulging as it yawned,
I felt myself grow hot,
As around it people swarmed,
Stroking and a’poking, giving it a welcome.
I felt sorry for the thing,
For it seems that lizards seldom
Like to share a cage or space.
The crowd gathered momentum.
Talking of the owner,
He took a sandwich next,
No hand washing for him,
Eewww, it made me want to retch.
The lizard seemed not bothered,
In fact, he was quite keen,
He could be vegetarian,
Or not, when meat was seen.
They said, ‘Don’t give him ham,
‘Don’t! He is a lizard.
‘It won’t be great if ham gets stuck,
‘Right inside his gizzard.’
It was only me who moithered,
Only me who shivered,
Dreading that the critter,
A skinny yellow lizard,
Might look askance at me,
As its head bobbed and quivered.
Yet, no mishap overcame him,
I watched where I was treading.
You see, all this was new to me,
A lizard at a wedding.
Polly Robinson © 2013
A post for OpenLinkNight78 at dVerse ~ hosted tonight by Tashtoo
This image shows a close-up photo of a bearded dragon head (Pogona vitticeps). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
