Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

Iguana

An iguana in an igloo feeling rather chilly,
said ‘What a thoughtless verse this is-
In fact it’s rather silly.

I really am a creature that comes from warmer climes,
and you can’t go and change that fact just to suit your rhymes.
I’m native to the tropics, the Caribbean and round
the central Americas is where I’m mostly found.
The Iguana iguana is commonly known as Green,
while the Iguana delicatissima is the Lesser Antillean.
We’re distinguished by a dewlap, rather spiky under chin,
and a row of spines right down the back to a tail that is quite thin.
On the head, a parietal eye, or third eye, which is pale,
is not an eye for seeing with, but a photosensitive scale.
Tuberculate scales behind the neck form small spikes, and not concealed
is a large round scale upon each cheek - the subtympanic shield.
Above each shield, behind the eye the tympanum is found-
a delicate membrane crucial for hearing any sound.
Colour, shapes and shadows can be seen with excellent sight
and over quite a distance, though not so well at night.
We can find our way through forests, to yellows we respond
which helps us find the foods we like, and berries of which we’re fond.
We use fancy visual signals to communicate when needed
for meeting mating partners when our signals have been heeded.
The oviparous female lays her eggs with lots of others
all buried in the ground and we never know our mothers.
Climbing trees is easy, with claws to stop a fall.
I don’t know why you thought of us in igloos- not at all.
It’s probably your penchant for slick alliteration
that fills the verses that you write with trite misinformation.’

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