Another four legs and a tail fall prey.
The pink tablets are too believable.

The family does not contemplate.
They only eat and eat and eat: disemboweling.

They run along the white
Tubes, filled with grey straws

That spawns red, yellow and black.
But do not drink from them.

Their ears rise up like antennas
Picking up signals they worry to decipher.

They only run and run and run.
Hear those patters. Hear them chasing death down the stairs.

Their buckteeth carves through the pills,
Lulling them into dehydration. Death craves for thirst.

And when their stench bleeds itself across the room,
It ferments electronics and shuts noses.

Shalini Nayar
© 2002