The meat stinks of sticky blood.
Ants fear the red flood, they flee;
Abandoning their mountainous
Playground-cones.

The gazelle stares, shooting blanks after blanks
Blindly and stupidly.
Its stained teeth grins and screams
But it is voiceless like the desert itself.

Lazily, a lion paws the earth.
His mane bloom a hairy sun,
Illuminates the scarce ground to bits of gold.
He sniffs, and turns away yawning.

He is used to this plate death serves him.

Shalini Nayar
© 2002