Selflessness, stoicism and stamina
against the tides of household air movement
are the qualities expected
of the blind mole-rat draught excluder.
Susceptibility to cold-induced agues
could quickly result in replacement
with the more traditional fluffy anaconda
or the ridiculously elongated sausage dog.
Cravings for an action-filled existence
would have to be supressed if one desired
a life of nestling anonymously
at the foot of any allotted domestic doorway.
Draft exclusion is a sacrificial pursuit.
Yet how many blind mole-rats secretly dream,
like the Sidney Cartons of home insulation,
of better places to lay their heads?
How many long for a life of rodenting around,
toothily flashing impressive incisors,
burrowing in five-kilometre tunnels,
gnawing in darkness at root and loam,
consorting in cooperative colonies,
carousing with their sand puppy cousins,
the short-tailed and naked mole-rats
of eastern Europe and Africa?
O blind mole-rat draught excluder,
tasked and dormant on the threshold,
‘tis a far, far better thing you do . . .
Your heroics have not gone unnoticed.
