AN UNEXPECTED THING

Abundance in a partly-starving world – buxom fruit
left to spill from buckets, bowls… off tables draped

to decorate a feast, reveal resentful awe from
side-lined witnesses whose mouths would slacken

at the sight, smell... and lack of guardians. Offered
to the air, to wild things. But if abandoned in panic,

left in the scattering desertion for safety, creatures
approaching would cower at such testing, and

once tasted, that burden of scents, unchecked gluttony
will arrive in a rush, splashed in juices, saliva,

growls from fellow diners. When the birds descend
beaks are swords, claws daggers into snaffling noses,

hard-working tongues, until first responders are sated,
sit back in astonishment at the rapid onslaught.

Latecomer squawks will tear a cacophony of outrage
imagining what was lost and the luck of the lower classes.