FourFiveTwo: with scales

Greed is the creature with scales
that dwells in the darkest depths
slithering so easily around Humility
and longing for longer legs,

And with the sharpest tongue, cuts itself
and coils tight to stop the bleeding
that tension sutures and dies blue red faced
that fire would also feign

I too, have heard the low-lying rattle
and been prey to leers from low in the fallows
yet, always, a path broken
gives every thing away.




Artwork by Arthur Rackham [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.