Jackals, hungry from days of lean,
but highly efficient, feeding, gather
at the tombside, making patterns 
in the tall grass like fat snakes with
bulbous heads; they are chattering and 
clacking yellowed teeth, and smelling of dandruff
and corporate heads foul their breath.
Today, at lunch, they ate a minor executive of a
company they did not know.

Spitting and swallowing impolitely loudly, they
inform the ex-lion that she is now a fatted calf,
and the Spoils.
Executing is not beyond her, but deathwish
intervenes; she glares back sadly and 
growls intermittently with no conviction at all.
They think she knows the rules and seek 
the self-bared throat of willing submission,
kissing devoutedly as they pass the mouth
they used to fear.

She has never been a jackal, and, not knowing the rules
at all, impolitely snips the heads of three
and the testicles of two she did not mean to bite.
Her sadness was at having to go looking
for jackals with better judgement,
and similar taste.

The little teeth will make a pretty necklace.

©  Copyright, 2000; Malcolm Beckett